


Such A Fool For Sacrifice

by LayALioness



Series: I Hope This Song Will Guide You Home [6]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-22 16:41:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4842779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sunlight is blinding, and tears stream down Clarke’s cheeks, but she can’t close her eyes.</p><p>“It’s beautiful,” she sighs, and doesn’t realize Bellamy’s still holding onto her hand until he gives it a squeeze.</p><p> </p><p>When his best friend is sent to the ground, Wells decides to go after her, but he doesn't know the first thing about fixing up a decades-old drop ship.</p><p>Luckily, Raven Reyes is remarkably easy to find.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Now We're Lost Somewhere In Outer Space

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I suck, just generally, just so you know. I swear I was going to finish this first and then publish it BUT nope I got sick of looking at it.
> 
> I'll probably finish it, and I'll definitely at least TRY to before starting anything else, but by now you all should know I'm not good at ending things, like at all. 
> 
> Title from Coming Down by Halsey, for anon

Clarke met her first spirit when she was five years old. It was an old woman—most spirits are women, Clarke’s learned. She thinks it’s because they’re more sentimental. They hold on longer, with a tighter grip.

The spirit played with her hair, saying she looked just like a princess, and told her that she would meet her best friend tomorrow, on the first day of school. Clarke was excited; she usually spent her days with her mother at the clinic, or her father when he was working on blueprints in the apartment. She didn’t know any kids her own age.

When she woke in the morning, the spirit was gone, and she was back in her bed, and she decided it must have been a dream. Dreams were funny, she knew, so she didn’t really think much of it.

But that was the day she met Wells, and so maybe it wasn’t a dream, after all?

The spirits only came when they felt like it, and always at night, and they always played with her hair, and they always warned her about what tomorrow would bring.

A sallow-faced spirit told her the night before Thalia kissed her at the Unity Day dance, so Clarke was prepared. The spirit showed her how to practice on her hand until she felt ready.

A dark-skinned spirit with a wide grin of bright teeth told her the night before the little girl attacked Wells in the cafeteria. She had a sharp piece of scrap metal, and aimed for his neck, but Clarke managed to pull him back in time and then the guards swarmed.

 _You were so lucky_ , everyone told Clarke. _You saved him just in time!_ But she knew it wasn’t luck, and she laid in bed all night waiting for the spirit to come, so she could thank her.

But the spirits decided she was better off without them, or maybe it was the other way around, and they didn’t come to see her until the night before her father was arrested.

She was in a nest of old blankets on her bed, when they came to her. She’d never seen more than one in one night, but here they all were—the quiet old woman, the thin-faced brunette, the flighty redhead that liked to knock things off her shelves, the dark-skinned lady with the toothy smile, and the girl with hair like straw that never spoke and just scrawled messages in paint across Clarke’s walls. They folded in all around her, combing their hands through her hair, knotting and braiding and unbraiding the strands, nervous and giddy in a way that made Clarke’s skin crawl.

 _Tomorrow’s a very special day_ , the old woman started, and the other women tittered, except for the brunette and the girl with no words.

 _You’ll be a busy girl for 3-1-9,_ the redhead said, flicking a paper snowflake Clarke has pinned to the ceiling. She took the sketch of her and Wells, and ripped it down the middle. Clarke tried to snatch it back, but the toothy spirit gripped her arms so hard they bruised.

 _Tell him you love him_ , she hissed, _and then let him go._

Clarke watched as Wells’ half drifted to the floor, and shook her head. _He’s my best friend,_ she argued.

 _Let them both go,_ the brunette whispered in her ear. She sounded anxious—she was always nervous when she visited Clarke, but this time she looked sick with worry.

 _I don’t understand_ , Clarke said, rubbing where her skin was beginning to purple. The spirits had never hurt her before, and she’d never been scared of their warnings, but this visit had her stomach all twisted in knots like her hair.

The old spirit took her hands gently, patting the knuckles. _You will_ , she promised. _Tomorrow they will come for him, and you must let them go. Say you know nothing._

 _But I_ do _know nothing,_ Clarke said, exasperated, but the spirit only smiled.

 _Just like that_ , she nodded. _Tell them you love them._

 _You will paint the world with ashes,_ the dark woman grinned, and Clarke shivered, snatching back her hands.

 _Tell me what’s happening_ , she begged, and they laughed at her.

 _Everything_ , the redhead said. _Something’s always happening, either here or down below._

 _Down below?_ Clarke asked. _What’s down below? Like, Hell?_

The spirit shrugged. _There’s not much difference_.

 _Now we must go,_ the old spirit said, and Clarke grabbed onto her wrinkly old wrists and squeezed. She had to be hurting her, but she didn’t care—she wasn’t even sure spirits could feel _anything_ , let alone pain.

 _I need you_ , Clarke said, desperate, but the spirit’s arms fell through her fingers like air. They were fading all around her.

 _You have what you need,_ the spirit told her, and then they were gone, and Clarke was alone in her bed.

The guard came for Jake Griffin, just like the spirits said they would, but for the first time, Clarke didn’t listen. She couldn’t let go, and when she came to in the interrogation room, she didn’t even bother trying to lie.

The spirits were wrong, for the first time. She didn’t have what she needed. She didn’t even know what it was.

Her mother slipped her the charcoal within nine days, but those nine days were a lifetime. She spent the hours thinking of ways to escape, and she came up with a few good ones, but then what? She lived out the rest of her life in hiding? Where would she even go, who would take her?

Wells would, she knew, but she couldn’t go to him. She couldn’t make him choose between her and his father.

The Ark had its shadows and crevices, she knew, but what would be the point of leaving one cell for another? It’d all be the same, in the end. All of the Ark was a prison.

Then the charcoal came, slipped under her door in the night, and the first thing she drew was her father, so she wouldn’t forget his face. Then Wells, and her mother, and the Chancellor with a noose around his neck, because she wanted him to feel what her father felt—the air being squeezed from his lungs with each second—but she wanted to look at his _eyes_ while it happened. She wanted to see the life flicker out.

And then she drew the earth, because she always came back to the earth. She’d grown up sketching oceans and deserts and forests and islands and birds she’d only ever seen in pictures and dreams.

She painted the world with ashes, and laughed bitterly when she got the joke. So the spirits weren’t _all_ wrong.

When the last spirit came, it took the shape of her father. But its voice was the old woman’s, so Clarke wasn’t fooled.

The walls and the floor and even bits of the ceiling, when she’d had enough energy to push her bed across the floor so she could reach, were filled with shades of gray, cataloging her memories and daydreams. Her father studied each in turn before coming to sit on the edge of her bunk, and turned to face her.

 _You lied,_ Clarke accused, still just as bitter as the day she was sentenced.

 _You didn’t listen,_ the spirit said mildly. _319 days, and you_ have _been busy._

Clarke scoffed. She’s been keeping a crude calendar in the corner of the wall, just a simple mark for each twenty-four-hour period. Or what she guessed to be twenty-four hours. She only had three hundred and two tallies, but she might have slept through a few days.

 _Busy doing_ what _?_ she snapped, and the spirit waved a hand at the walls. At her ash-colored world.

 _Becoming what you need,_ the spirit said, and Clarke hated her.

 _What I_ need _,_ she spat, _is my dad back. What I_ need _is my best friend, and my mom, and to get out of this fucking jail cell, and for all of you to stop being so goddamned cryptic, and give me a straight answer for_ once _!_

The spirit smiled as her father, and Clarke shuddered at the sight. _Tomorrow you’ll see the sun set_ , she said.

Clarke gaped. _What the hell does that mean?_

 _Whatever the hell you want,_ the spirit smirked, and Clarke glared at her. _Keep watch,_ the spirit said, sobering. _Count on ours. Break the glass._

 _What?_ Clarke asked, confused—why were they so cryptic?

The spirit ignored her. _It’s time_ , she said, and Jake Griffin smiled down at his daughter. _Look how big you are_ , he said—it was _his voice_ , just as she remembered, and Clarke burst into tears.

She clutched at him, and he held her like a child. _I miss you so much_ , she sobbed, and he stroked her matted hair.

 _I can’t stay, kiddo,_ he said, pulling back with a sorry smile. _Count on ours_ , he told her, and squeezed the wrist his watch sat on.

And then he was gone. Her cell door opened, and a handful of guards swarmed in. Clarke stood on shaky legs.

 _What’s going on?_ she demanded, and they told her to face the wall.

This can’t be it, she told herself. The spirit said I’d see the sun set.

It could have been a euphemism, she thought. You know how spirits love their jokes.

One of the guards reached for her father’s watch, and Clarke ran. She didn’t get very far, just like last time.

Just like last time, she felt a prick through her skin, and her last thought was her father’s face, before she sank into the black.

 

When Clarke comes to, it’s to a voice she doesn’t recognize. It’s a girl, to her left. She’s pretty, Clarke thinks drowsily; a brunette around her age, with bright, harsh eyes. She huffs a sigh when Clarke blinks.

“Thank fuck,” the girl says. “You’re alive. I thought they’d stuck me with a corpse, or something.” Something around them gives the horrifying screech of torn metal, and everything rattles until Clarke’s neck hurts.

“Not yet, anyway,” she growls, reaching up to rub the sore muscle, and the girl grins.

“They won’t get me so easy,” she declares, and Clarke actually believes her. “I’m Octavia.” She tips her head a little, curious. “I don’t remember seeing you in lock-up.”

“Clarke,” she says. “Isolation.” She expects questions, at the very least—it takes a lot to be kept out of general population completely. But Octavia just shrugs.

“So you didn’t have to deal with the rest of these assholes,” she says wryly. There’s another, sharper screech, and the shaking doesn’t stop this time. Everything feels like it’s coming apart.

“What the fuck was that,” Octavia barks, whipping her head all around as if looking for the answer.

“Probably the atmosphere,” Clarke muses. She feels oddly resigned to her fate; if they die getting to the earth, at least she won’t get sucked out in the vacuum of space. She’d prefer to go out burning, anyway.

“I am _so_ not dying today,” Octavia bites out, more to herself than anything, and Clarke reaches for her hand. Clarke lets her clench it so hard the bones of her fingers grind together, and she doesn’t say a word.

 _If I die and come back as a spirit_ , Clarke decides, _I’m finding the others, and I’m kicking their asses._

She doesn’t die.

“Listen,” a boy calls from behind her. “No machine hum.”

It might be her new favorite sound, the silence. She fumbles with her belt, and then helps Octavia when her hair tangles in the buckle. They stretch out their limbs, giddy with the adrenaline of survival.

There’s a scuffle from below, the sound of voices, and then a boy’s rings out louder than the rest. “Alright guys, just step back,” he says, and Octavia goes tense beside her.

“Bell,” she whispers, and she’s still clutching Clarke’s hand, so she gets tugged along when the girl takes off running.

“Bellamy,” Octavia calls from the top of the stairs, and Clarke follows her gaze down to a boy standing next to the door. He’s dressed like a guard, and he grins up at them.

“Look how big you’ve gotten,” he says, affectionate, and Clarke wonders if they dated on the Ark.

He’s older than the rest of them, so he must have fought to get on the dropship. She wonders what it must be like, to love someone so deeply she’d chance death, just so they wouldn’t die alone.

Octavia grins and hops down so he can hold her. Clarke stands back, trying to seem less awkward, but it’s hard since Octavia’s still holding her wrist in a vice grip.

“This is Clarke,” she says, pulling away, giving Clarke’s arm a flop for emphasis. The boy looks down at her, a little reserved.

“Nice to meet you,” he says, firm and business-like. Clarke frowns back at him.

“Where’s your wrist band?” She lifts her own in example, and he shifts, crossing his arms over his chest, like he’s about to fight her.

“Lay off,” Octavia huffs, and it’s not really clear which of them she’s referring to, so they both slouch back a little. She turns to Clarke, reaching to tug on the boy’s arm with her free hand. “This is Bellamy, my brother,” she says, and the crowd of kids behind them start to buzz.

“No one has a brother,” someone says, and Octavia frowns at the group in general.

“That’s Octavia Blake, the girl under the floor,” another calls, and she lunges out, only held back by Bellamy and Clarke’s hold on her arms.

“Let’s give them something else to remember you by,” Bellamy grins down at his sister, and wraps his hand around Clarke’s so she’ll release it.

“The air could be toxic,” Clarke warns when he reaches for the lever, but it’s pretty half-hearted. They can’t possibly all survive on the ship for more than a few days.

And the spirit did say she’d see the sun set. She sort of wants to prove that prophesy right.

“If the ground is toxic we’re all dead anyway,” Bellamy shrugs, and Clarke steps back as the door falls open.

The sunlight is blinding, and tears stream down Clarke’s cheeks, but she can’t close her eyes.

“It’s beautiful,” she sighs, and doesn’t realize Bellamy’s still holding onto her hand until he gives it a squeeze.

 

Wells almost didn’t believe they’d go through with it—sending one hundred kids down to the earth, in an old dropship a century old? They couldn’t possibly get away with it; the kids’ parents, at the very least, would put up a fight.

But Abby finds him in the hallway, after spending thirteen hours in surgery trying to save his father. She looks like a crumpled up tissue, like _she’s_ the one who was shot, and for a horrible second, he thinks she’s going to tell him his father didn’t make it. His first thought is that would make everything much simpler, and then he feels like the worst son of all time. Thelonious may not be much of a dad, but he’s still _his dad_ , and he’s all he’s got left, now.

But instead, Abby tells him about Clarke, and Jake. She tells him everything, and cries, and he holds her because he’s too shocked to do much of anything else. His father had called him into his office, the day Clarke was sentenced to the Sky Box, but he wouldn’t tell him why. At the time, he’d assumed it was a meager attempt at protecting his feelings, but now he knows it was because Thelonious knew that, son or not, Wells wouldn’t follow him in this. The people deserve to know they’re breathing borrowed air, stolen from their children.

The hundred deserve to know they weren’t abandoned, at least, not by everyone. They need to know there are people up here, counting on them, missing them, thinking of them.

Clarke needs to know, and he has to be the one to tell her.

But even Wells knows that simply _telling_ everyone would do little. There might be rioting, or worse, and people would get hurt, possibly killed. So he’s careful—he hacks into the information system, using his father’s account, and studies the files of each prisoner, and all the ones they’d left behind.

He’s clever, but there isn’t much he can do when it comes to building an actual rocket. With a bit of creative searching through the ancient virtual library, he manages to find an old ship that _might_ work, but it’d been left to rust in a forgotten corner of the station for decades, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

Raven Reyes is remarkably easy to find.

She’s a little less easy to convince, at least at first.

“And you’ve _deigned_ to grace us with your presence _because_?” she snarls, not bothering to look away from the bit of wiring she’s tinkering with. It looks like an oil-stained jigsaw puzzle made of sharp metal, and he’s pretty sure it’s important.

Wells sighs; frankly, he’s used to this. He’s his father’s son, and that’s what most people know him as. Only Clarke ever really saw something different.

He’s not used to having to convince people otherwise; _he_ knows he’s his own person, and Clarke knew, and that was always what mattered. But he needs this girl to see someone worth helping, so he leads with what he knows she’ll listen to.

“I can help you save your boyfriend,” he says, and her hands finally still.

She glares up at him, wary. “Why the _fuck_ would you do that?” she hisses, eyeing the other mechanics across the room. They’re very clearly trying to be subtle with their eavesdropping. “A little privacy, guys?” she barks, and they start begrudgingly filing out, giving a few wolf whistles for good measure.

“They sent him to the ground,” Wells tells her, and Raven gapes up at him. “Him and the rest of the prisoners.”

“ _Why_?” she asks, too shocked to be angry. Wells knows the feeling.

“The Ark’s running out of air,” he admits. “It’s unfixable. The council wanted to know if the earth was habitable yet, so they sent the most expendable people they had.”

“They’re _kids_ ,” Raven says hotly, and then narrows her eyes. “Why do you want to help me?”

“I don’t,” Wells shrugs. “I need you to help me—my best friend was in the Sky Box, and I’m going down to help her.”

“Oh, I get it now,” she says, and her voice is still hard, but her eyes look almost friendly. “The girl you love’s down there, and you’re gonna be her knight in shining armor?”

Wells is used to this, too. No one ever believed him and Clarke, when they tried to explain that they weren’t _in_ love. They were family. When they were kids, they used to joke that they would have been born as siblings, if it weren’t for the law. Even now, _best friend_ still doesn’t feel completely accurate. Not like _sister_ does.

“We grew up together,” he says instead. “She’s my best friend. Are you in, or not?”

Raven doesn’t bother to answer, just stands and wipes her grubby palms on her already stained pants, and holds out a hand, like a challenge. She doesn’t think he’ll touch her, her skin all marked with motor oil and grime. She doesn’t think he’s willing to get his hands dirty.

Wells grips her hands with both of his, like a promise, and tries not to feel too smug when she seems surprised. “Thank you,” he says, earnest, and Raven rolls her eyes.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” she huffs, snatching back her hand. “I haven’t done anything, yet. How good are you at astro-physics?”

“Not very,” Wells admits. “But if you need to know how to make a rash cream out of hickory nuts, I’m your man.” Raven looks less than impressed.

“Yeah, we’re definitely gonna die,” she decides, but she sounds almost excited about it.

 

When Clarke steps on earth for the first time, she almost expects to wake up back in her cell, with the spirit staring down at her. But the ground is hard beneath her feet, and she bends down to scrape her fingers through the dirt, and some of it digs under her nailbeds, so she knows she’s not asleep.

Then she thinks she might be dead, but—if she is, and this is the afterlife, she’s almost grateful. Death on the ground is already a million times better than life in a box.

The air smells—different. Warm, almost. Not crisp and stale, like the Ark’s recycled oxygen. Her hair blows in the wind, and leaves rustle all around her as the kids run in all different directions, not sure where to go first. They’ve never had this much room, and it’s been years since they’ve had any freedom.

A boy—Finn, she knows from others calling his name—steps up beside her. “Hey, princess,” he grins, and Clarke stares at him.

They used to call her princess on the Ark. Because she was the daughter of two council members, and was always with Wells.

But, surprisingly, the nickname reminds her of the spirits, instead. She wonders where they are, and if they’re watching.

Octavia sidles up, eyeing Finn a little predatorily, but when she speaks it’s to Clarke. “I’m thirsty, and there’s no water on the dropship,” she says, blatant. “Wanna help me look for some?”

Clarke glances out at the woods, and there’s a sense of longing in her chest that she hasn’t felt since her dad was floated. “Okay,” she agrees. “Did they give us a map, at least?”

“You guys need an extra set of eyes?” Finn asks, and Octavia smirks.

“Not likely—but we _could_ use some extra muscle.”

Finn grins, and waggles his fingers. “I’m very good with my hands,” he promises, and Clarke rolls her eyes just as Bellamy strides up to them. There’s a map unfolded in his hands, and Clarke eyes it greedily.

“What are you doing, O?” he asks, frowning. Octavia makes a face.

“Going to find water, _dad_ ,” she says, but her tone’s still laced with affection. He opens his mouth, clearly intending to go with them, but Clarke cuts him off.

“Someone should stay with the kids,” she says, and he turns his frown on her. “It’s just a hike,” she shrugs. “We’ll be back in an hour.”

He looks skeptical, and outright _glares_ at Finn, but then gives a curt nod. “You’re in charge,” he warns her, “Which means if something happens, it’s on you.”

Clarke rolls her eyes and snatches the map from him, while Octavia stifles a snort. “You’re not _my_ dad,” she huffs, and turns on her heel before he can argue. “Let’s go.”

The woods are easier to navigate than Clarke was expecting; the trees are widely spaced, and the ground, while uneven, isn’t hard to hike across. She mostly just glances between the map and their surroundings, while Finn points out all the trees and flowers he recognizes from Earth Skills.

Octavia nudges Clarke’s shoulder with a gleam in her eye. “I call dibs.” She juts her chin out to where Finn’s plucking a neon pink flower from a vine.

Clarke rolls her eyes, turning back to the map. She thinks it might be upside down, so she flips it. “Be my guest.”

They find the river—or lake, maybe. Clarke wasn’t ever very good at Earth Skills; that had been Wells’ forte. He’d describe the trees or creatures he’d read about, for her to draw and paint and dream about. She breathes in the wet air of the water, and wishes he was breathing it, too.

“Awesome,” Octavia grins, and strips off her pants without another word.

“Uh,” Finn stammers, and Clarke thinks _yeah, that’s about right_. There is a _lot_ of skin suddenly on display, and Octavia winks back at them before jumping in.

They barely manage to save her, with Clarke jumping in and Finn hauling them both out of the water, wet and shaky and petrified. Clarke makes a tourniquet from Octavia’s discarded pants—or at least, tries to remember how she’d seen her mother and Jackson do it.

“Well at least we won’t go thirsty,” Finn jokes as they help her hobble back. Octavia makes a face at them both.

“What the hell happened?” Bellamy demands as they limp back to camp. He takes in his sister’s bloody leg—the fact that she’s in her underwear probably doesn’t help matters—and turns to glare at Clarke.

“She didn’t do anything wrong, Bell,” Octavia sighs, sounding tired, and Clarke watches as the fight drains out of him.

“Get me a bucket,” he orders, and he must have been training the kids while they were gone, because a boy sets one down before him within seconds. Bellamy flips it upside down and gingerly sits his sister on it, careful with her wounded leg. He glances back to Clarke. “Should we bandage it?”

She’d gotten a good look at the cut back by the water, and found it shallower than all the blood had led her to believe. She shakes her head. “It should be fine, and the fresh air will help. But we should probably clean and disinfect it.”

“Also, pants,” he adds, serious, and she fights a laugh.

“I don’t know,” Octavia chirps innocently, “It gets more fresh air this way, like Clarke said.”

Bellamy gives Clarke a look that says _this is all your fault_ , and frowns.

“Shorts should be okay,” Clarke says primly, and he sighs before standing up.

“I guess it’ll do,” he grumbles, and then levels a heavy stare at Finn. “Spacewalker, don’t let her out of your sight. And she doesn’t move from the bucket.”

“What if I have to pee?” Octavia argues, and he sighs.

“Carry her,” he tells Finn, and then grabs Clarke’s wrist to tug her along behind him. “Let’s go find your medical shit.”

“Why’d you call him Spacewalker?” Clarke asks, once they’re far enough away that she knows Finn won’t hear. Bellamy gives her a look of confusion.

“He’s the kid that went on the illegal spacewalk,” he explains, and when she doesn’t react, he seems to understand. “You were in solitary, right?”

“Almost a year.” Clarke rubs a finger along her nails to feel the dirt packed underneath them. She’s not asleep. She’s not dead. She’s here, she’s awake, she’s alive. Maybe if she keeps telling herself that, she’ll believe it.

“So you wouldn’t have heard about it,” he decides, and eyes her a little warily. “What’d you do to get locked up, anyway? It was all anyone ever talked about for months.” He doesn’t sound bitter about it, or even suspicious. Mostly he just sounds—curious, and a little soft.

Like he’s offering to listen, to whatever she has to say.

Clarke swallows; she hadn’t realized until now that she hasn’t actually _told_ anyone. About her father, and what he found, and what they did to keep it hidden. She thinks, just for a second, about telling Bellamy Blake to fuck off. She thinks about keeping it a secret, keeping the pain to herself.

But the truth is, she needs someone to know. Someone that’s not a spirit. Someone alive, and real, and willing to believe her.

“My dad was an engineer,” she says. She keeps her words short, perfunctory, because she knows if she thinks about them too much, she’ll cry. “He found a flaw in the oxygen system, and he couldn’t fix it. The Ark is dying, and he wanted to tell everyone. He thought they should know, but the council refused, and when he tried to tell them anyway, Jaha had him floated. I found out, and so they threw me into solitary—I would have been floated in three weeks, if we didn’t come to the ground.”

“They would have reviewed your file,” Bellamy argues, but Clarke scoffs.

“They floated my dad without a trial,” she says. “They couldn’t chance him letting the secret out. They would have done the same to me.”

“They floated your dad the same month they floated my mom,” he admits, and Clarke stares at him. “I was stupid, and got Octavia caught by the guard, so they put her in a cell and sent my mom into space.” He isn’t looking at her, like he’s embarrassed, like he doesn’t want to say the words.

“Why are you telling me this?” They’ve reached the dropship by now, and Bellamy starts rifling through all the boxes of supplies the Ark had deigned to send with them. She’s pretty sure he doesn’t even know what he’s looking for.

“You told me yours,” he shrugs, glancing back at her. The back of his neck is red and blotchy, and she fights the urge to reach out and hug him.

When was the last time she hugged someone? Her father, just before he died. She shudders at the memory.

“Thank you,” she says instead, clenching her hands into fists. He scoffs a little, and turns back to the misshapen box made of recycled metal.

“Just help me find the disinfectant,” he says, gruff, and she bites back a smile before moving him out of the way.

“You’re making a mess of things,” she accuses, and he makes a face, turning to another box filled with tasteless ration bars. They’re probably all expired.

She finds an old recycled bottle marked ALCOHOL, which she figures should do the trick, but it’s only two-thirds full, and she glares at the thing.

“What is it?” Bellamy asks, taking the bottle. Before she can stop him, he uncaps it and takes a sniff. She takes it back as he starts coughing, and laughs.

“This won’t last us very long,” she frowns, but to her surprise he just shrugs.

“All you need is alcohol, right?” he asks. “That should be easy to make. I’ll get that Agro kid on it.”

“Wait, what? What Agro kid?”

Bellamy squints down at her. “These kids weren’t born and raised in the sky box,” he says. “I knew some of them before. You probably did too.”

Clarke hadn’t really thought about it, but he’s probably right. She was only in solitary for a year—before that, there was school, and the cafeteria, and the station dances. The odds are pretty likely that she knew at least _some_ of the prisoners. “I didn’t,” she pauses, trying to remember any of the other faces she’d seen on the dropship. She can’t. “I didn’t notice,” she admits, and feels horrible.

“Let’s get that to O,” he says, tugging gently on her hair to get her attention. He stares at the strands a little before dropping them like they burned. “C’mon, princess.”

Clarke bristles and marches after him. “Don’t call me that,” she snaps. Bellamy smirks back at her, and she wants to hit him.

She also, inexplicably, wants to count his freckles with her tongue, which. Well, she doesn’t really know what to do with that, so she shoves it away.

“Then don’t act like one,” he teases, and she huffs, pointing her nose up, which probably just proves his point.

Then she races to reach his sister first, because she’s fucking mature.

Finn’s massaging Octavia’s calf when they get there, while a gangly boy with goggles works on her shoulders, and Clarke has to put herself between them and Bellamy before he strangles them both. Octavia just grins up at her and Clarke realizes the girl probably never had this—fifteen years under a floor doesn’t leave a lot of room for crushes, or attention from boys.

“Get lost,” Bellamy bites out, and the gangly boy scatters, while Finn just backs up with a smirk. “Vultures,” he mutters, and Octavia sticks out her tongue.

Clarke somehow manages to sanitize Octavia’s scratch, while Bellamy hovers and questions and just generally is unbearable. Each time O winces from the sting of disinfectant, he barks at Clarke, until she’s had enough.

“I’m just saying, maybe you _should_ cover it a little, so dirt doesn’t get in,” he growls, and Clarke whirls on him, shoving him back with both hands.

“That’s it,” she declares. “You’re done.”

“You’re done?”

“No, _you’re_ done. Go, I don’t know, make sure none of the kids have killed themselves climbing trees, or something. Let me take care of your sister in _peace_.”

He eventually leaves, grumbling the whole way, probably to take out his anger on some unsuspecting teenagers, but Clarke can’t even feel sorry for them. She sighs and sits back down beside Octavia.

“That was badass,” she says, and Clarke smiles. “We’re going to be best friends,” O decides.

“What?”

Octavia looks at her, hard and serious. “You’re my first friend,” she says. “ _Ever_. And you saved my life, which means we’re going to be best friends. For forever.” She takes Clarke’s hand and squeezes, and Clarke bites back a grin.

“Okay.” She thinks back to Wells, and feels a sharp pang of guilt, but. Wells isn’t here, and even if he were, he’d be fine with it, she’s pretty sure. Wells doesn’t mind sharing. “Best friends.”

Once she’s had Jasper—the boy with the goggles, who’s already half in love with Octavia, poor soul—help her trim what’s left of Octavia’s old pants into a pair of shorts Bellamy probably won’t approve of, Clarke has the rest of the hundred file through the dropship so she can tend to their minor wounds.

Bellamy, meanwhile, has the rest of them building a wall with old trees and scrap metal from the ship. A few of the girls are setting up meager tents with the ship’s parachutes.

He finds her at dinner, made up of what the kids found, foraging through the woods. Berries and other weird-colored fruits and nuts, after being looked at by Monty—the Agro kid Bellamy mentioned—to make sure they won’t cause botulism.

There’s also the ration bars, which they take grudgingly. Clarke’s showing Monty a design she came up with, for a fishing rod, when Bellamy finds them by the fire. He holds out a round green fruit they’ve decided might be some strange peach, and she takes it tiredly.

“What’s that?” Bellamy nods to the rod she’s drawn in the dirt.

“The river might have fish,” she says. “I thought we could take a group down tomorrow and try to catch some.”

Bellamy nods around a bite of his own fruit. “I’ll get some of the guys together,” he says, and then looks at her firmly. “You’re staying here.”

To be honest, she’d been planning to stay anyway and help organize a clinic. The dropship had terrible lighting, and the air felt stale and metallic. A tent would be better. But she wasn’t about to be ordered around. “You’re not the boss of me,” she snaps, feeling childish.

Bellamy grins, and it’s infuriating. “No,” he agrees. “I’m not. But you’re our only doctor, and we don’t know what’s out there.” He glances back to where his sister’s bossing some of the younger kids around. Miller’s got one arm around her, propping her up, while the others fill up a bowl with the best fruits for her. Bellamy shakes his head, fond, and turns back. “We can’t risk losing you.”

“Yeah well you’re our captain,” she teases and he makes a face. “So you’re not allowed to get hurt, either.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, princess.”

She goes to sleep in the dropship, so the others can find her if there’s an emergency. She’s settling into her cot when the Blake’s come in, Octavia perched on Bellamy’s back like she belongs there. Clarke watches as she orders her brother around, having him set up a cot for her just a few feet from Clarke’s, and he drops her on it before grabbing his own.

“This way his babysitting’s more efficient,” Octavia explains, settling in. “He can mother hen us more if he’s in the same room.”

“Shut up,” Bellamy says, but there’s no heat to it. “Go to sleep, princess.”

Clarke almost expects to find one of the spirits sitting on the edge of her cot in the middle of the night, but when she wakes it’s to sunlight streaming through the open hatch, and she’s alone in the room.

Because the first day went so smoothly— _yes_ , there were a few rogue cases of some weird poison oak, and Octavia’s attack in the water, but everyone was alive—Clarke thought the rest of their stay on earth would go just as well.

That was her first mistake.

She’d just tugged on her boots when she heard voices shouting, and ran outside.

It was Murphy, and he was pissing on one of the boys on wall-duty. A few of the younger ones were trying to pull him away, but couldn’t, so Clarke picked up one of the smaller branches, and hit him with it.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he spit, holding the base of his spine where she’d smacked him, and stumbled back.

Clarke waved the branch at him. “I could say the same to you.”

Miller reaches down to help the kid—Colin, she’s pretty sure—to his feet, and Murphy sneers at them. “He said he was thirsty.” He’s still smirking, like he thinks it’s a joke, and Clarke barely keeps herself from whacking him in the _face_ this time.

She remembers hearing the other girls in their cells, their muffled cries when the guards covered their mouths with a pillow as they touched them.

They never went after her, because prisoner or not, her mom was on the council. But she _heard_ them. It could have been Harper, or Fox, or _Octavia_ , and Clarke scowls.

“The next time you whip it out without permission,” Clarke snarls, striding up until they’re face-to-face, “I’ll _cut it off_.”

“What’s going on,” Bellamy asks, and he’s not the overbearing brother from last night. He’s the captain, now, staring everyone down and demanding an answer.

“The _princess_ is sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong,” Murphy says, and his spit lands on Clarke’s chin. “Nothing new there.”

“That _doctor_ is the only one who can save you if you pick a fight with the wrong person,” Bellamy points out, and Clarke stares at him. “So I’d show a little respect, if I were you.” He avoids Clarke’s gaze, instead turning to the rest of the hundred, having stopped to watch, in turn. “Show’s over, everyone back to work,” he orders, and the kids scramble back to their work posts.

When Murphy doesn’t move, Bellamy glares at him. “That means you,” he says, “Or do you need your hearing checked?”

As soon as they’re alone, Clarke turns to him. “I didn’t need you to step in,” she says. “I had it under control.” She’s still burning with anger and adrenaline, and now she doesn’t know what to do with it. She’d sort of wanted to brawl.

Bellamy shrugs. “I know.” He reaches back to rub his neck, awkward, and when she squints up at him he scowls. “What?”

“You’re secretly nice,” she decides, and he reaches out to pull her hair until she swats him away. “Don’t you have food to catch?” she asks pointedly, and he grins.

“Don’t you have bullies to fight, and people to save?”

“That’s right,” Clarke says primly, starting back for the dropship. “And when you get poison oak on your ass, I won’t do a thing to help you.”

Octavia finds her in the ship just moments later, limping up on her own, ignoring Jasper when he tries to help. “Is it true you kicked Murphy in the dick and then threw a tree at him?” she demands, and Clarke sighs.

This time, Finn’s the one to find her at the fire.

Bellamy and his hunting crew had come back in the late afternoon, with wet hair and wide grins and buckets filled with oily fish and water snakes. Clarke’s trying to figure out how to cook hers without burning the sides, while Bellamy fetches them water from the basins they’d set up earlier.

“Need some help?” Finn asks, settling down beside her. Clarke frowns a little—Bellamy had been sitting there, and she’s not sure how to politely say the rock is taken.

“I’ve got it,” she says, glaring at the fish’s scales where they’re starting to go black. The top isn’t even _near_ cooked, yet, and she’s not sure how that’s possible.

Finn chuckles. “Sure,” he shrugs, putting his own in the fire. “I have something to show you,” he says, low, like he doesn’t want anyone else to hear, and Clarke tries not to grimace. She doesn’t like the idea of sneaking off in the woods in the middle of the night—she knows a few of the kids have tried it, hoping to find some private spot to fuck around in, and that’s how the poison oak happened.

“Okay, I’ll get a little group together,” Clarke says, firm. “We shouldn’t go off anywhere without backup, until we know the territory better.”

He frowns, clearly disappointed, but it’s hard to argue with safety. Bellamy chooses that moment to reappear with their water, a dented cup in each hand, and he looms over them, unsure.

“Should I…” he trails off, clearly asking if she wants to be left alone with Finn, which is sweet, but unnecessary. She tugs on his shirt so he’ll sit on her other side, completely unsubtle. He gives her a raised brow, but says nothing, and she takes her cup.

“Finn has something to show us,” she tells him, taking a gulp. Their filtering system isn’t the best—mainly just a layer of rocks meant to catch the big things, so it tastes a little like sand. But at least it doesn’t taste like metal. “So hurry up.”

“I just sat down,” Bellamy says, amused. “And your fish is on fire.”

“No it isn’t,” Clarke argues reflexively before looking, but of course it is. “ _Dammit_ ,” she hisses, yanking it out and dumping the rest of her water over the thing. “Why is this so _hard_?”

Bellamy laughs and takes the stick from her hand, giving her his perfectly cooked fish instead. “I like mine well-done anyway,” he shrugs, taking a huge bite of burned flesh. She knows he’s lying, but she also knows it’d be pointless to argue, so she just eats his.

“Yeah, so, whenever you guys are ready,” Finn mumbles, just as Octavia wanders up with a cooked snake in each hand.

“Ready for what?” she asks, leaning on Finn as she sits.

“No,” Bellamy says, and she glowers.

“I’ll just follow you anyway,” she points out. “So you might as well let me come _with_ you, so I don’t get lost or something.”

Bellamy heaves an enormous sigh, and Clarke pats his knee comfortingly. She’s not sure it works, but at some point he _has_ to stop being so ridiculous about his sister. “She’s got a point,” she says, and he glares at her like she’s betrayed him.

“If anything happens to her,” he starts, and Clarke rolls her eyes.

“It’ll be my fault, yeah, yeah.” But when she looks up, Octavia’s giving her a blinding smile, so it’s hard to feel bad about it.

They decide not to start out until at least daybreak, mainly because Octavia’s leg isn’t completely healed yet and they don’t want her stumbling around in the dark. That night, they all sleep on cots in the dropship, and head out at first light.

Finn leads, since he’s the only one who actually knows where they’re going, and Octavia pretty much forces him to half-carry her along, so Bellamy falls back until he and Clarke are a few feet behind.

“Is he bothering you?” he asks lowly, and Clarke glances up in surprise. She’d been studying a clump of white flowers she’s pretty sure Monty told her to collect, so she’s squatting and squinting up to see him through the sun. She probably looks ridiculous.

“Who?” she asks, and follows his sightline to where Finn’s wrapping some sort of vine around Octavia’s head like a crown. “Finn?” Bellamy’s nodding at her now, looking worried and serious, and Clarke fights a smile. “No—I mean, I’m pretty sure he was hoping this would be some kind of date, but I don’t think he’d try anything if I said no.”

Bellamy nods again, shifting his feet, suddenly uncomfortable. “So you,” he hesitates. “You don’t, uh, want him to? Try anything,” he clarifies, and Clarke doesn’t bother hiding her grin, now.

“If I did, I wouldn’t have invited you and Octavia,” she chirps, brushing her knees off as she stands.

“Right,” he says, flat, and hurries to catch up to the others.

“Here we are,” Finn calls out, kicking back the leaf litter so they can see a metal door in the ground.

Bellamy reaches for the gun he keeps tucked in his pants, and steps in front of them. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a bunker,” Finn grins, pulling the hatch open while Bellamy points the gun at the hole, just in case. “There’s a whole bunch of supplies down there.”

“And you didn’t want to share with the rest of the class, because?” Bellamy hedges, suspicious, and Finn’s eyes flick to Clarke.

“I was going to,” he says, defensive, but Bellamy just rolls his eyes.

“Sure you were.” He waves Finn over with the gun. “You first, Romeo.”

Finn frowns, but climbs expertly down the ladder without a fight. Clarke watches him disappear down the hatch, and nudges Bellamy’s shoulder with her own.

“Big fan of Shakespeare?” she asks, and he smirks back at her.

“I prefer Homer. O, you next.”

They climb down one by one, and marvel at the space inside—it stretches on and on beneath the ground, with shelves of old board games and dish sets and DVDs still packaged neatly. All the things a family thought they’d get to bring with them, wherever they ended up. Like the Ancient Egyptians packing for the journey across Styx—except these people thought they’d survive.

“Check it out,” Finn crows, holding up a half-deflated soccer ball. He tries to kick it across the room, but it only rolls a few lopsided feet. Clarke runs for it anyway.

“Octavia, you’re on my team,” she declares, glaring at the two boys. “You two—get in position.”

“Not all of us have played this game, princess,” Bellamy says, dry, so Clarke huffs and shoos him to a corner.

“Your goal is that wonky chair; you have to keep me and O from kicking the ball on it. Ours is that bookshelf, so you want to try to get the ball there. No hands. It’s not rocket science.”

Bellamy scoffs, but he sets the gun carefully off to the side before bending his knees a little, looking determined. Finn bounces on the balls of his feet beside him, while Octavia and Clarke share a vicious nod.

She tosses the ball up, and the game starts.

But no matter how many times she calls foul—“Finn, I said _no hands!_ —Bellamy, you can’t just keep moving the chair away—Octavia, _stop biting_!”—no one really pays attention, and eventually she gives up. It’s a free-for-all, with flailing limbs and altogether more biting than she’s sure is kosher, but it’s _fun_ , and they’re giddy and breathing heavy when they hear the hatch slam shut.

“What the fuck,” Bellamy pants, looking back towards the entrance. They’ve migrated farther into the bunker, and have to round a corner to see it. Octavia’s at the front of the line, and they all file after her into the main room, before freezing.

Bellamy crashes into his sister’s back when she stops suddenly. “ _Ow_ , O what the—” he stops when he sees what she’s staring at.

There’s a man in the bunker, and he’s holding a spear. Bellamy’s eyes flicker to the gun, forgotten on the side of the room, but the man is closer. He must notice Bellamy look, because now the spear is lowered, and aimed straight at his chest.

“Bad idea,” he says, English clear as day. His accent is a little lilted, just enough to sound foreign. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

“Funny way of showing it,” Bellamy growls, edging so he’s a little in front of Octavia. “What _do_ you want?”

“To make sure you won’t hurt us,” the man shrugs. “We have questions.”

“Yeah, well so do we,” Bellamy says. “Starting with who the fuck you are.”

The man gives a small smile, and Clarke finally remembers to breathe. She tugs O back slowly, so she stands nearly at Bellamy’s shoulder.

“We have answers,” he offers. “But you must come with me.”

Bellamy scoffs. “No way.”

“We hoped you would see reason,” the man says, and at least he seems a little regretful, as he raises the spear.

Bellamy lunges for the gun as the man _blows_ into one end of the spear, which—it’s not a spear at all. The metal tip flies out, surging into Bellamy’s neck, as the rest of them scramble.

The man aims for Clarke next, but Finn leaps in front of her and the needle lands in his shoulder, while Clarke hustles Octavia back through the bunker. There was a bathroom with a door, and if they reach it they might be able to brace it shut from the inside.

“Bell,” Octavia calls, but Clarke shoves her along.

“He’s unconscious,” Clarke says, because she can’t think he’s dead, not yet, not until she knows for sure. “ _We_ have to move, now.”

But then she feels something sharp in the back of her thigh, and everything goes dark around the edges. _She’ll make it_ , she thinks, before blacking out.

 

“ _Damn it_ ,” Raven swears, hitting something with her wrench. It’s impossible for Wells to tell _what_ she’s mad at, or why, but he’s learned this is just a part of her method. She’ll figure it out, whatever it is, and have it fixed within the hour. Raven Reyes is pretty much a genius.

He’d known that, of course, from her file; it’s why he sought her out. But _seeing_ her in action is different. It’s like watching a miracle, blinding and awesome, and if she wasn’t trying to get to earth to reunite with her longtime boyfriend, Wells might do something about it.

But as it is, he’ll take Raven in whatever dose he can.

He’s sitting on top of— _something_. It used to be a washing machine, he thinks, but was recycled into the rest of ship at some point in the last sixty years.

“3/4,” Raven snaps, and Wells sifts through her tool bag, searching for a socket the right size. He finds it, and hops down to hand it over, where she’s half-buried under the dropship engine, ripped open from the belly so she can poke around inside.

She snatches it from him and pitters around before calling a half-hearted “Thanks.”

Wells grins down at his hands—they’re a little smudged with oil, from handing her tools and taking them back when she doesn’t decide to just fling them across the room—and he sort of likes it. He never really was allowed to get dirty as a kid, not like Clarke who was always covered head-to-toe in whatever paint she’d decided to use that day. No, he had to always have his pants starched and stainless, because he represented his father. That was always what he was—just another small piece of the Chancellor. His reflection was never really his own, just a smaller picture of his father, staring back at him.

But right now he smells like gasoline and oil and a little bit like sweat, because the air conditioning isn’t as high in this sector. The knees of his pants are covered in dust and a little grime, and he had to roll his sleeves up for the first time. He glances down to see his shoes are scuffed, and he grins.

“You losin it on me?” Raven asks, and he looks up to find her sitting on the floor, watching him. There’s a streak of engine grease high on her cheek that he wants to wipe off with his thumb.

Wells clears his throat. “Not yet. Any progress?”

Raven makes a face. “We need an air compressor,” she admits, and sighs at his blank look. “It’ll keep our lungs from exploding in space,” she says. “They’re rare, and _expensive_.”

Wells frowns. “They sell that kind of thing at the market?”

Raven smirks. “Not _your_ market. Don’t worry, I can get us one.”

Wells’ frown deepens. “Don’t do anything dangerous,” he warns, and she gives a mean smile.

This is the part he hates, because he _likes_ Raven, but this is when she makes it very clear she doesn’t like him.

“Don’t worry your highness,” she sneers, “I won’t get you in trouble with daddy.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” he says quietly, and there’s a moment of silence where she stares him down.

“I can get us one,” she repeats, voice strained, and it’s a clear dismissal, so Wells stands.

“Just—be careful,” he says. She doesn’t answer, and he leaves.

“Where have you been?” Thelonious asks, when he opens the door. Wells freezes, one hand still on the doorknob. He’s rolled his sleeves down, and shined his shoes as best he could, but his slacks were a lost cause, and his father’s frowning down at them.

“Some kids knocked over a shelf in the library,” he lies. “I helped them fix it.”

“Did you get their names?” his father asks, and Wells swallows, shakes his head.

This scene always fucks him up a little, because there _are_ names he could give—the people who taunted him, bullied him, called him _little prince_ , and _Asshole Junior_ his whole life. He could give those names to his father, and it’s not even guaranteed something would happen. Thelonious is careful around things like nepotism—he would never simply take Wells’ word. But he would look into them, and it’s entirely possible that some of them sell things on the black market, or sneak extra rations every now and then, or maybe some of the weed Wells knows a few kids grow in Agro.

He could give their names, and he might even feel good about it. They’re bound to get in trouble eventually, anyway—he’d just speed up the process. Dole out a little Karma.

And sometimes he wants to. The days those kids push him to his knees, just to ruin his perfectly pressed trousers. The days they taunt him, and put glue on the back of his head in class, so he has to shave his hair in the bathroom. The days they take one of the precious few books he keeps just for himself, and they tear out the pages and stuff them down the sink. Those days, he wants to tell so bad his teeth ache.

But he doesn’t, because then he wouldn’t just be a representation of his father. He’d be exactly what he didn’t want to, what they all think he is, his father’s face in the mirror.

“No,” he says, carefully impassive. “It was an accident.” Thelonious just shrugs and turns back to his tablet.

“Those trousers are ruined,” he says. “You won’t be getting another pair for some weeks—I’ve told you to be careful. New clothes are a luxury, not a right.”

Wells smiles, soft and to himself, and ducks so his father won’t see it. “I understand. Goodnight, dad.” He shuts himself off in his bedroom, and glances at the drawing taped up to his wall. It’s one of Clarke’s, from when they were younger. It’s not as good as her later ones, but it’s his favorite just the same—the two of them, on earth, or what she’d imagined it to be. There’s a cat on his shoulder, for no particular reason, and a black bird flying in the sky up above. He thinks it might be a raven.

He hopes she gets to meet Raven—they’d like each other, he knows. For all that Raven complains about the privileged of Ark, he thinks she and Clarke have a lot in common. He hopes they meet on the ground, and he hopes he’s there to see it.

Wells tips his head back against the door and lets out a sigh he’s been holding in for hours. It’s ragged and desperate, which is exactly how he feels. He thinks about Clarke, maybe scared and lonely and sad on the ground, too far for him to reach. Or maybe she’s happy—maybe she’s exploring through trees and meadows, and making friends the way she never really could in the sky. He hopes she is.

He thinks about Raven, which—he tries _not_ to think about Raven, not like this. Not smiling, and loud, and _electric_. He tries not to think about how her skin looks like ribboned caramel, or what she might taste like.

She has a boyfriend. She talks about him sometimes, not a lot, but enough for Wells to gather that he’s a _good guy_. He’d have to be; Raven wouldn’t settle for anything less.

Wells never really got to have this, before. Growing up, before he’d realized he didn’t have to be what his father wanted, he’d focused on his studies, on doing anything he could to prove himself—he’s not sure to whom. Maybe his dad, maybe his classmates, maybe himself. He never really had time for things like _crushes_ , and besides, the only girls interested in him were only interested because he was the Chancellor’s son.

Except for Clarke, there was always Clarke, and maybe he _should_ have fallen in love with her, but he didn’t, and so he’s never really felt like this. He doesn’t know what to do about it—normally, he’d study every possible answer and then pick the best choice, but.

Mostly he just really wants to kiss her, which he can’t do, because she has a boyfriend.

Wells dreams about earth that night. He and Raven fall to the ground and their ship crashes, but Raven sprouts enormous black wings and soars free while he burns.

When he goes to meet Raven at the old ship, she isn’t there. He tries not to panic, but she’s _always_ there before him, and she always makes fun of him for it, smug and sarcastic, but today the room is quiet and empty. It makes him feel uneasy, and he waits for two hours before finally getting up the nerve to go to her apartment.

She won’t like him showing up there, he knows. Even with all their secret meetings in the old ship chamber, she’s still embarrassed talking about her home life with him. She covers it up by hurling insults about privilege, and calling him _your highness_ all the time, and he lets her do it, because he knows that on the inside she’s somehow convinced he thinks he’s better than her. And he knows that, to some extent, she thinks he’s better, too.

He’s hoping to change her mind, eventually. He’s hoping he’ll have time to.

She lives alone, he knows; has ever since she turned eighteen and moved out of Nygel’s, who’d taken her in when her mom was floated. She was seven years old.

He wonders what it must have been like, to be raised by someone like the black market queen, the Madam of the Ark. Technically, he’s not supposed to know about that, but. People talk. Not to him, but they do, and Wells has extremely good hearing.

Raven opens the door a few inches, just to see who it is, and he’s not sure who she’s expecting it to be, but she looks surprised to see him. He’d thought maybe she was feeling sick, or just more irritable than usual and so didn’t feel like dealing with him, but instead there’s a large bruise spanning one cheekbone, just below her left eye, and he feels suddenly nauseas.

“You’re hurt,” he says, and he sounds like someone punched him in the stomach. Raven stares at him, unimpressed.

“No shit, Sherlock,” she snaps, but her voice is hoarse, and the effect is lost on him. He’s still just _staring_ at it, so she rolls her eyes and opens the door completely. “Come on, before someone sees you,” she hisses, and Wells stumbles into her apartment.

He’d known it would be small, of course. It’s a single room, just for one person, and most of the space is taken up by bits and pieces of old and new machinery, some rusty and eroded, some glossy and chrome. There’s a messy bunk in one corner, and a sink cluttered with old screwdrivers in the other, and Wells drinks the sight in like water. He wants to poke through all her things, to see what they tell him. He wants to know everything about her.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s not exactly up to Alpha standards,” she grumbles, and when he glances over, she’s toeing at a disemboweled tablet spilling wires out on the floor. “But it’s home.” She cuts her eyes at him, daring him to speak.

“It’s cool,” Wells says lamely, and then clears his throat, reaching out before he can think better of it. His fingers land on her jaw, sharp and tense, and he turns her face slowly so he can get a look at the bruise. It’s smaller than he first thought, a sickly yellow blotch on the tip of one cheek. He brushes his thumb against the skin, and she shudders. “Sorry,” he says, quiet, and he’s so close he can feel her hot breaths on his skin.

“It’s fine,” she says, just as soft, and he’s not sure if she’s talking about the bruise, or his hand on her, but neither of them try to pull away. She leans in, just a little, so his palm is flat on her cheek, and she’s so warm it almost burns him.

“What happened?” he asks, and the moment is broken. Raven’s eyes turn harsh again, and she steps back with a scowl.

“It’s _fine_ ,” she spits. “I’ll fix it.”

“It’s not,” Wells argues. “Raven, let me _help_ you—”

“I don’t need your help,” she says, defiant.

“Everyone needs help.”

She studies him for a moment, and then seems to deflate, slumping in on herself. He steps forward, stumbling a little over some of the machinery, and she starts to bark at him for it, but then he’s holding her and she’s too stunned to speak.

It takes her a minute, but she leans into him eventually, little by little, soaking up the affection like she’s afraid if she takes too much too fast, it’ll all run out and she won’t have anything.

“It was Nygel, wasn’t it.” Wells doesn’t ask, because it’s not really a question. He knows the answer already; he just needs her to confirm it. He’s also really hoping she won’t lie.

Raven nods into his shoulder, hands coming up to grip his sweater. She’s wearing a pair of old threadbare sweatpants with a checkerboard of stains, and a ratty moth-eaten tank top. Her feet are bare, and Wells is having trouble not staring at them. There’s chipped polish on her toenails—some sort of faded orange—and he wonders where she got it.

“Why?”

Raven pulls back, just a little, enough to move so her head is resting on his shoulder instead of pressed into it. “She wanted me to hook for her,” she admits. “As trade for the air compressor. I said no. I couldn’t, I just, I—” she sounds dangerously close to breaking down, like she’s trying to explain herself, like she thinks she _needs_ to.

“I’m glad you said no,” Wells tells her, moving his palms down her back like his mother used to do for him when he was sick, or anxious. She doesn’t seem to dislike it, so he doesn’t stop. “Your safety is worth more than a spare part.”

She makes a disgruntled noise. “We _need_ that spare part,” she says, angry, but at least she’s not angry with him. It’s a nice change.

“And we’ll get it,” he promises. “But not at your expense, not because you did something you didn’t want to.”

“Well, Mr. Bright Ideas, what do you suggest?” she barks, but she’s still clinging to him, so Wells smiles where she can’t see.

“We tried your way. Now we try mine.”

Wells hasn’t been to the temple room since he was eleven, and watered the tree. He glances over at the small group there for the day’s worship—getting smaller every day, it seems—and then looks away quickly. He’s always liked Vera. She’s kind for no other reason than to be kind, which is rare to find in a person. He doesn’t want her to see what he’s about to do.

Nygel is in the back, dealing cards at her table. She tries hard not to seem surprised when she sees him, but it’s clear that he’s thrown her off guard. They’ve never actually interacted before, but she knows who he is, and she doesn’t understand what he’s doing there.

She probably thinks he’s there for his father, which makes him grin. What a joke.

If anything, his smile just seems to put her off more, which is good. He needs her off-kilter. He needs her scared.

He eyes her card-players for a silent moment before they decide to scatter, and then takes one of the emptied seats, adjusting until he’s comfortable. He needs her to think he feels relaxed, here. He needs her to believe it.

“Little prince,” she says, pleasant. “Whatever can I do for you?”

“I heard you have an air compressor,” he chirps, just as pleasant, and watches her eyes gleam. “I’d like to have it. Please.”

“I have to say,” she grins, leaning forward. “I never thought my little bird would get herself mixed up with _royalty_.” Wells huffs a laugh, and her smile widens. That’s fine. He’ll let her think she’s got the upper hand, for the moment. “But why would I just _give_ you anything? I work in trade, not hand-outs.”

Wells nods, understandingly, and then he leans forward too, mirroring her stance until there’s just an inch or two between them. “Because if you don’t, I’ll tell my father about your little underground sex ring,” he says, voice low. He doesn’t have to fake the menace.

Nygel scoffs. “He already knows,” she says, which is fair. Everyone knows that when it comes to vices, Nygel’s the one to go to. “There’s no proof.”

“I have half a dozen girls willing to testify that you forced them to hook for you,” Wells says, blatant, and feels smug when the blood drains from her face.

“They wouldn’t dare,” she argues, trying to call his bluff. But she’s rattled, and that’s hard to hide. Wells grins.

“Turns out a favor from the Chancellor’s son is worth more than your half-assed intimidation,” he says. “More rations, bigger living space, better healthcare. A word from me goes a long way.”

“And I don’t suppose the Chancellor knows anything about this?” she snarls.

“Would I be here if he did?” Wells asks, and winks. She’s still fuming as he stands, but it’s clear he’s the winner here. “I want the compressor by dinner tonight,” he says. “If I don’t see it by then, I’ll assume you’ve gone back on our deal. Understood?”

He waits until she gives a curt nod, and then strides out with his head higher than it’s been in weeks.

He stops at the edge of the congregation, standing to offer their closing prayer, and he goes over the words in his head. _May we meet again_.

He meets Raven at the ship, air compressor clenched in his hand. For the first time since he found her name in the system, their plan suddenly feels _possible_ , tangible. It’s so close he can nearly taste the fresh air.

“Wow, Jaha,” Raven crows, snatching up the part greedily and turning it over in her hands. “You’re a badass—who knew?”

Wells knows he’s grinning stupidly, but doesn’t bother trying to hide it. He slides up on the ex-washing machine and watches as she gets to work. “I tried to tell you,” he says, smug, and Raven laughs under the machine.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t push it.” She tinkers with the engine a little, putting the final touches in place, before wiping the sweat off her forehead with a greasy arm. “Ready to go get the girl?”

Wells rolls his eyes, but doesn’t bother arguing. “Ready,” he nods, and does his best to believe it.


	2. With His Educated Eyes And His Head Between My Thighs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You said you think it was fate, us meeting, but—”  
> “Bellamy,” Clarke reaches up to push the hair from his face.  
> “I would have found you, no matter what. That’s what fate is. I think I’ll always find you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is completely bellarke, and the next will focus on raven/wells. it's mostly done already, and will definitely be up within the next day.  
> i was initially worried about making them move too fast, to be honest, but frankly if the writers of the actual show can have characters fall in love within 2 days, then so can i.

When Clarke wakes, it’s to dim yellow light, and the dark-skinned spirit sitting on her feet. It grins down at her, and Clarke shivers.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, glancing around. Her vision’s a little fuzzy, and her ears are ringing, and her left leg feels like pins and needles. She remembers the bunker, and the strange man with the sharp little arrows. “Where are we?”

 _“We’re in a storybook,”_ the spirit grins. _“It’s up to you, how it ends.”_

Clarke frowns. The room is big enough for their voices to echo a little, made of old wood. There are little piles of what looks like _books_ all around, like someone tried to straighten the place up, but didn’t have anywhere else to put them. “I don’t want to choose the ending,” she says, and the spirit pats her foot; she’s still wearing her boots, which is slightly reassuring. At least no one undressed her while she slept.

 _“Then don’t,”_ it shrugs. _“It’s just a story.”_

Clarke pulls her knees up to her chest, sliding her feet out from under it. The spirit jostles a little, but doesn’t seem to care. “No weird advice for me this time?”

 _“Count on ours,”_ the spirit says. _“Break the glass. Time saves, but the compass leads.”_

“I don’t suppose you want to explain any of that,” Clarke deadpans, and the spirit’s grin swallows its face.

The door across the room creaks open, and when Clarke blinks, the spirit is gone. There’s a girl in the doorway, a pretty brunette she doesn’t recognize.

“You are awake,” the girl says, clearly relieved by this. Clarke doesn’t move, still tense and curled up on the cot she woke up on.

“Where am I?” she asks. “Who are you? Where are my friends?”

“I am Echo,” the girl says, nonchalant. “Your friends are in the lobby—welcome to the Ton DC Library.”

Clarke follows her down the hall—more stacks of books line each wall, like people just dropped them off as they finished them, and they slowly started to collect. As they walk, the murmuring of voices gets louder and louder, until it’s clear enough to make out, and she recognizes Bellamy’s. He sounds irritated, and serious, and Clarke quickens her pace, ready to stop a fight—or jump in and back him up, if he needs it.

But she’s seen the size of his arms. He probably won’t need back up.

And then they round the corner, and Clarke finds Bellamy arguing, not with a person, but with a hardcover book clutched in his hands.

“I can’t _believe_ they got this wrong,” he says bitterly, slamming the book shut and sliding it onto a shelf before picking up another one. “At least _this one_ has the excuse of being written before the New World’s discovery.” He glares down at the page, completely oblivious to the rest of the world.

“Bellamy?” Clarke asks, and his head snaps up so fast she hears his neck crack, and he winces.

“Clarke,” he says, relieved, and waves her away when she tries to check his neck. He tosses an arm around her shoulder in some sort of affectionate greeting, she assumes. If it’s a hug, it’s a pretty bad one. “C’mon, I have something to show you.”

He leads her through the towering book shelves, filed haphazardly and not in any sort of order that she can see, until they reach a small stack set off to the side. He waves at it proudly, and she reaches for the first book on the top.

“ _How to Draw Owls_ ,” she reads, glancing up at him. His ears are going red, and he’s rubbing his neck again.

“I figured—you liked to draw on the Ark,” he explains, and she clutches the book so she doesn’t reach for him instead.

“How did you know that?”

“I was a cadet, when you were arrested,” he shrugs. “The prison guards talked about you. You, uh,” he grins, “You freaked them out, a bit.”

“Good,” Clarke says, firm. She flips through the book a little, before reaching for another from the stack. _Drawing Sea Creatures_. “You found all of these?”

“All the ones I could, anyway,” he grumbles, frowning at the bookshelf before them. “Their organizational system’s a joke.” He shakes his head at the chaotic bookshelf, clearly disappointed in it, and everything that it stands for. But he still seems a little star struck by the place, itself. “Can you believe this all _survived?_ There’s so much we can learn from these.”

“Bellamy Blake, are you a nerd?” Clarke asks, delighted. “Be honest.”

His whole face is red now, and it’s great. “Shut up.” He nods over behind the shelf. “O and Spacewalker are with the librarian.”

“There’s a _librarian_?”

Bellamy nods sagely. “Apparently it’s a big honor, for these people.” He sounds positively jealous, and Clarke bites back a grin.

“You should ask if they’re hiring.”

“But then who would be your _captain_?” he teases, and Clarke shoves at him with one hand. He doesn’t even _move_ , and she snatches her hand back. He’s very—firm. Solid.

“ _Co_ -captain,” she corrects. “You’re still not the boss of me.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, tugging at her hair, and she follows him out into the lobby.

They find Octavia flipping through an old magazine—they’ve covered the pages with some sort of plastic, to keep the paper intact—next to a large man who’s reading an equally large novel, with his feet up on his desk.

“That’s Lincoln,” Bellamy tells her, and then calls out “What you all call _organization_ is tragic.”

Lincoln doesn’t even spare them a glance. “ _We_ can find whatever we are looking for,” he argues, and peeks up a little when Octavia perches up on his desk. He moves his feet over so she can have more leg room, and she beams at him. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with it.

“Are you the only one that works here?” Clarke asks, looking around. Now that they’re in the open part of the lobby, she can see that the library is _massive_ ; much larger than the one on the Ark, with dozens and dozens of huge book shelves lining the room down both sides. She doesn’t see any windows, so she’s pretty sure they’re somewhere underground, which makes sense; they’d have to preserve the books from the elements.

“To be a librarian requires years of training,” Lincoln says seriously. “There aren’t many of us left—most wish to become healers, or teachers, or hunters.”

Bellamy perks up a little. “You have a school?”

“Of course we have a school,” Lincoln scoffs.

Bellamy narrows his eyes at the librarian, and Clarke tenses, reaching for his arm. She doesn’t _really_ think he’ll start a fight in the library—the books might get damaged—but she’s a little worried he might say something they’ll all regret.

“You can really find _any_ book you’re looking for?” he asks, and it sounds like a challenge. Lincoln eyes him a little before nodding. “What about _Ovid_?” He sounds a little shy, and Clarke shares a grin with Octavia.

Lincoln mulls it over for a moment before standing. “Do not doubt me,” he tells them, and strides off into the rows of shelves.

“I can’t believe what a nerd you are,” Octavia teases, hopping down from the desk. “Actually, I really can—you named me _Octavia_ , god, Bell.” Then she hops along after Lincoln. She’s barely limping, which is a good sign, and she’s wearing a pair of loose white trousers.

“You named your sister?” Clarke asks, and Bellamy flushes.

“I was five,” he mutters, defensive, and she frowns.

“I didn’t mean—isn’t that a little young?”

Bellamy studies her for a minute before sighing, leaning back against the desk. Clarke suspects Lincoln would yell at him for it, if he were here, or at least give him a very hard stare.

“My mom, she wasn’t the best,” he admits, tired. “She tried, and she did what she could, but honestly she probably shouldn’t have ever had kids.”

Clarke settles down gently beside him, so their hips touch. “I’m sorry,” she offers, but he just shrugs.

“I did what I could, but,” he shakes his head a little, and smiles down at his hands. “I’m glad she got this. She never would have had a life, on the Ark. She deserves one.”

Clarke nudges him with a grin. “First person on earth.”

“First _sky_ person on earth,” he grins back. “That’s what they call us, here—sky people.”

“It has a certain ring to it,” Clarke muses, and he nods.

“Do you ever wish you’d been the first off the dropship?” Bellamy asks, and Clarke takes a moment to think it over. At the time, she’d hardly even noticed Octavia stepping slowly off the ramp—she’d been too blinded by the sunlight, and overwhelmed by the fresh air.

“No,” she decides. “No way. If the ground had, like, turned out to be poisonous, then I could’ve just closed the door.”

Bellamy shakes his head in mock-disappointment. “Good to know where we stand with you.”

Clarke just smiles—she’s still holding the book, and it’s warm and solid in her hands.

 _Sometime soon_ , she thinks, _I’m going to kiss you_.

“There you are,” Finn calls, and the moment is broken. He goes up to her immediately, reaching out to tilt her face, maybe checking for injuries, or maybe just because. Clarke shakes him off.

“I’m fine,” she tells him, but he just frowns.

“You were out for a while. They thought you had a reaction to the sedative.”

Clarke turns to Bellamy, only to find him frowning back at Finn. “How long was I out?” she asks him, and he sighs, running a hand through his already messy hair.

“A day?” he guesses. “The rest of us woke up after just a couple hours. They wanted us to go back to camp and just wait for you there, but,” he gives a grim smile. “We didn’t want to leave you behind.”

“Or the books,” she adds, because the whole thing is starting to feel too serious.

“Or the books,” he agrees.

“I tried to convince him to just take you and force our way out,” Finn offers.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” Clarke chirps, cutting Bellamy off as he opens his mouth. “The books might have been damaged.”

As far as lines go, she’s not sure that’s a very romantic one—but the look Bellamy gives her sends a buzz of electricity all the way through to her toes. She feels like a candle, with his eyes as the flame; like she’s ready to melt underneath them.

Finn clears his throat and Clarke glances up to find him frowning at them. They probably shouldn’t be eye-fucking in the library, right. “The others are probably worried,” he says, and Clarke feels a pang of guilt—he’s right, of course. Monty, Jasper, Miller, and all the others are probably going out of their minds, trying to find them. Searching the woods, maybe even the bunker if they’ve found it.

“We should go,” Clarke agrees, and Bellamy nods.

“I’ll go find O.” He turns and heads off in the direction his sister and the librarian had gone.

Once he disappears among the books, Finn speaks. “So, you and Bellamy,” he hedges, and something about his tone puts her on edge. He talks about Bellamy the way her mother talked about art—dismissive.

“We’re co-captains,” Clarke says, purposefully vague.

“You shouldn’t trust him,” Finn says, and she scowls. “He’s a good hunter,” he admits, quick to placate. “But when it comes down to it, he can’t protect—”

“Bellamy Blake has done more for our fucking camp than anyone,” Clarke snaps, and Finn stares at her. He’s never seen her angry—no one but Wells and the prison guards have, really—and he clearly isn’t sure how to react. “ _He_ started the wall, _he_ caught the first fish, _he_ kept the peace with the grounders, and I do trust him.” She glares until he caves under her gaze, and ducks his head.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he mumbles, and it takes a good deal of energy not to just hit him in the head. But—she’s a good person, so she doesn’t. Barely. “He’s a good guy, I just—I wish you’d keep me in the loop.”

“You were never in the loop, Finn,” Clarke says, suddenly tired. He goes to argue, but the Blake’s choose that moment to reappear, with Lincoln by their side.

“I can’t believe you _found_ it,” Bellamy says, looking down at the book in his hands with awe. Lincoln looks incredibly smug.

“Years of training,” he says, and quickly glances away when Octavia beams at him.

“Ready to go?” Clarke asks, standing. Finn follows sulkily.

“Thank you so much,” Octavia gushes, reaching to squeeze the librarian’s arm. It’s the width of a sapling, and Clarke wonders if that’s a part of his training, as well.

Bellamy glares down at the arm in question, and nudges his sister away with his hip. “Yeah,” he agrees, much more subdued. “We’ll see you in a week?”

Lincoln nods, clasping his hand and doing something complicated with their fingers. Bellamy fumbles a little as he tries to keep up. “Seven mornings,” he agrees, and walks them to the door.

The way out is a staircase, with torches lighting the way until they reach the sun. Clarke hangs back a little until Octavia and Finn are ahead.

“What happens in a week?” she asks, and Bellamy looks suddenly guilty.

“Lincoln’s people have agreed to come by the camp, and help—building, planting crops, digging wells. I would’ve asked you, but you were still out cold.”

“What would you have done if I didn’t wake up?” She’s been wondering about it since Finn mentioned the sedative. Bellamy’s face goes dark, serious.

“I probably would have killed them,” he decides, and his tone is light but she knows better. She reaches over and tangles their fingers together. If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it, just takes her hand.

“But then who would protect all the books?” He squeezes her hand a little, and squints up at the sky.

“We agreed neither of us were allowed to get hurt.”

Clarke makes a face. “It’s not like I planned it, but fine—you can have _one_ free pass. Feel free to break a bone, or something. Just to be fair.”

“Well as long as it’s fair,” he grins, glancing down at her. “I heard you earlier, you know. With Spacewalker.”

“He’s an idiot,” she says coolly. She’s not Finn’s biggest fan, but she doesn’t really want Bellamy to kill him.

“You were protecting my honor,” he teases, and she does her best not to flush. But now he’s smirking, so she’s not sure it worked.

“Well, what are co-captains for?” she says primly, and then Octavia’s demanding they both come see what she and Finn have found.

“What the hell _is_ it?” Bellamy frowns, and Clarke squats down to get a better look.

Octavia curls a finger out to it and wiggles it in its face, and the creature snorts a little before rubbing up against her knuckle. “It’s adorable, that’s what.”

“I think it’s a pig,” Clarke offers, but she’s not really sure. It could be _anything_ , really. It has four small legs and a thick, squirming body. Its nose is round and flat against its face, and there are two little nubs sticking out below, like maybe tusks or misplaced teeth. Its tail is longer than a pig’s, and a little straighter, but it’s still bent at odd angles, and wagging. It has a tuft of ruddy fur right on top of its head, and soft wrinkly skin everywhere else.

“If it’s a pig, we can eat it,” Bellamy decides, and Octavia stares up at him in horror.

“Don’t you dare, Bell,” she warns fiercely, and reaches to scoop the pig up in her arms. “He’ll stay with me.”

Bellamy squints at his sister, incredulous. “Octavia,” he says slowly, stretching her name out. Clarke does her best not to laugh, and Finn stays quiet beside her; they can both tell this is a Blake’s-only conversation.

But Octavia just shoves the squirming pig into Bellamy’s face so close he has to pull back a little. She glares at him. “He’s staying with me,” she declares, and tucks the creature under her arm to head back to the camp.

She doesn’t get very far, before they hear the rustle of leaves parting, and a monstrous creature steps out into view.

“What the fu—” Bellamy starts, reaching for his gun, but Octavia’s the closest to the thing, and so it charges her.

They all surge forward, and all Clarke can think about is Octavia’s leg, still not fully healed yet, but they must have underestimated the girl, because she cradles the piglet to her chest and rocks her whole body forward in a kick so hard they hear the beast’s ribs crack.

Bellamy shoots it in the head, quick, three times, and then it’s over. He’s breathing hard, more from fear than anything most likely, and stares at his sister before looking down at the thing he’s just killed. “I guess that’s dinner.”

The piglet is still squirming and squealing in Octavia’s arms, but she just strokes its head a little. Once it’s grown quiet, Finn speaks up. “You guys hear that?”

They held their breath and listened, and a high pitched noise pierced the air. “There are more of them,” Finn guesses, taking off towards the sound.

Bellamy keeps his gun out, just in case, but when they reach Finn, it’s clear they won’t need it. There’s a little hovel dug into the ground beneath the roots of a large tree, and inside are three more squealing piglets, wriggling around.

“One for each of us,” Finn grins, scooping one up. He passes it to Clarke and she scrunches her nose, but takes it anyway.

Bellamy watches her hold it with both arms outstretched, clearly amused. “It’s a baby,” he tells her. “Hold it like one.”

“Not all of us have handled a baby before,” she snaps, and he steps in to readjust her arms so she’s cradling the piglet. It digs its soft little nose into her shoulder and snuffles hot air on the skin of her neck.

“Oh,” she breathes, and Bellamy chuckles.

“Here,” Octavia says, shoving a small squirmy piglet into his arms. “It’s the runt of the litter—figured you’d like that.”

“You’re such a brat,” he huffs, but ruins it by immediately curling the piglet into his chest.

“So where’d you learn how to kick like that?” Finn asks on the hike back, and Octavia shoots him a feral grin.

“I’m basically a badass,” she crows, and Bellamy barks out a laugh.

“All Blake’s are badass,” he gloats, and Clarke makes a face at him, cuddling her piglet close to her chest. It’s napping, and keeps snorting in its sleep, nuzzling its face against her breasts.

They’ve managed to fall back a little, again, and she keeps her voice light when she asks “So are you ever going to tell me why you have that gun?”

Bellamy goes quiet, brushing a finger against his piglet’s mouth for it to suck on. “Maybe,” he says, noncommittal.

“Do I get to know when?”

He shrugs. “When you like me a little more.”

When they reach the camp, they’re quickly surrounded as the kids come running, shouting for the others that _they’re back, they’re okay! They’re okay!_ and swarming them, getting a good look.

It doesn’t take long for them to notice the piglets, and then everyone’s excited all over again, cooing, and reaching out to stroke their soft noses and tufts of fur, begging to hold one, asking about names.

Clarke has a few mild injuries to look at, and Bellamy has to go over the perimeter and talk with the guards, so they leave the piglets with Octavia and the rest of the delinquents.

But when she gets to the dropship, Clarke finds Murphy looming over Jasper and Monty, each with a pile of metal bracelets before them. They’re doing something to the wires inside, and Clarke stares for a moment, confused.

“What are you doing?” They jump when she speaks, and turn, clearly relieved. Murphy sneers.

“What does it look like?”

Clarke ignores him, and turns to the others, toeing at a pile of short-circuited bands. “Why’d you take them off?”

“We figure—they probably transmit stuff to the Ark, right? Like, it’s how they’re keeping track of us,” Monty explains. “So we thought maybe we could use them to get a message to the Ark.”

Clarke fingers her own bracelet absently—it’d been easy to forget about it, completely. She hadn’t given much thought to them, but Monty’s explanation makes sense. She wonders if her mother’s on the other end of a screen somewhere, monitoring her heart rate. She hasn’t spoken to her since her arrest—she’s not sure what she’d even say.

“That’s a good idea,” Clarke agrees. “But if they’re transmitting our vitals, we should have at least half the kids keep them on, so the Ark knows the earth is safe.”

“And if they don’t?”

Clarke only jumps a little, shooting Bellamy a glare for scaring her. But he just frowns back, dark and serious.

“They won’t come down,” she says. “The Ark is running out of oxygen. That’s probably why they sent us here; to see if the earth is survivable.” At the time, she’d just assumed it was because they needed to get rid of the hundred, to conserve air. But if that were the case, why weren’t they just floated? It would have taken less effort, and they wouldn’t have had to part with so many supplies.

Now she’s sure they were an experiment—the Ark was always good at squeezing every bit of use from whatever they had, even people.

Bellamy nods a little, clearly thinking her words over, and then waves a hand. “Murphy, with me.” He avoids Clarke’s gaze on the walk out, and she stares after him.

Jasper gives a low whistle. “Mom and dad are fighting?” he hedges, and Clarke looks over at him.

“ _What_?” she demands, and he sniggers.

“You guys call us _the kids_ ,” Monty shrugs, like it’s perfectly logical to refer to her and Bellamy as _parents_.

“Just—mess with your wires,” she says lamely, and stalks out of the ship.

Outside, she finds Bellamy, Murphy and Colin set up on the edge of camp, with a line of kids stretched out before them. It takes her a minute to realize what they’re doing—laying the teenagers down on a log so they can pry off their bracelets, and then passing them a stick of the cooked mother pig.

They’re _bribing_ the kids with their dinner. Clarke storms straight up to Bellamy, shoving him hard in the chest.

“What are you _doing_?” she demands, and Murphy yanks her back by her shirt.

“Where’re your manners, princess?” he grins, and she tugs out of his grip.

“Don’t touch me,” she snarls, glaring back at Bellamy. Murphy goes to grab her again, but Bellamy shakes his head, which just makes her _madder_. “You know they’re going to die if you do this,” she says, and he stares impassively back at her.

“They sent us to die,” he shrugs. “Why should we care?”

“Because there are thousands of people who _didn’t_ send us to die,” Clarke snaps, and it takes everything she has to not _scream_ it. “They probably don’t even know we’re down here, and they sure as Hell don’t deserve to die for it.”

“They made their choice,” Bellamy says, sounding colder than ever.

Murphy tugs at her wrist, hand closing over her bracelet. “Looks like we’ve still got one more.”

“Let her go,” Bellamy snaps, and Murphy scowls at him, dropping her arm. “I’m not gonna force you,” he tells her, and she scoffs.

“I guess I’ll just go then,” she decides. “Leave you to murder thousands of innocent people.” And then she turns on her heel and storms off, even as she feels his eyes burning into her back.

“Your brother’s an idiot,” Clarke snarls, collapsing in a heap beside Octavia, watching over the piglets run around. The kids have put together a makeshift fence of scrap metal and buckets all tied around with torn bits of cloth.

“I know,” Octavia sighs, passing Clarke a stick of cooked meat. “I snagged you some when he wasn’t looking.”

Clarke eyes the piglets as she takes a bite. “Should we feel bad about eating their mom right in front of them?”

Octavia shrugs, ripping into her own dinner. “I don’t think O.J.’s scarred for life.”

“O.J.?” Clarke asks, glancing at Octavia’s piglet. It’s the fiercest of the bunch, which figures. It’s got a bit of weird glowing fruit one of the kids found, and it keeps fighting the others off.

“Octavia Junior,” O explains. “If boys can name their sons after them, why can’t I?”

Clarke grins and finishes her meal. It’s near sundown when Finn finds them, an extra stick of meat in hand. His bracelet glints in the firelight.

“They didn’t take yours off?” Clarke asks.

“I figured if _Murphy_ wanted it, I probably shouldn’t give it to him,” he shrugs, holding the stick out to her. She raises her empty one and shakes her head.

“What are you naming your pig?”

“Comet,” he chirps, reaching over to scratch the piglet behind its ear. It’s been going around the perimeter of the fence all afternoon, searching for an escape—but it was Bellamy’s who found the hole, and tried to sneak out before they barricaded it with more branches. “What about you?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Clarke muses, staring at her pig. It’s the second-smallest, with a fluff of ginger on top of its head, and pale pink skin everywhere else. Its tusks are small, but sharp. They sliced through Monroe’s finger, earlier. But it was an accident—the thing mostly seems to want to have its belly scratched, or nose around in the patch of lichen.

“So you and Bellamy are fighting?” Finn hedges, sitting down. He doesn’t seem smug about it, just—resigned. Like he’d known this would happen.

Clarke wants to argue the point, but. They are fighting, aren’t they? And she doesn’t even know why, that’s the worst part.

But she’d bet anything that it has to do with that gun.

Bellamy hadn’t had a bracelet, even at the beginning. She’d noticed that right away. She’d originally assumed the Ark had sent him down to be a sort of babysitter; a hundred teenagers left unsupervised probably wasn’t the best idea. But they wouldn’t have sent him without a bracelet, would they? Which means they didn’t send him, at all.

Clarke leans her head on Octavia’s shoulder, for reassurance. O reaches up to pet her hair a little, but choppily, which makes Clarke grin. The Blake’s really are _terrible_ at comfort. “Wish me luck,” she says, and Octavia snorts.

“You’re gonna need it.”

She finds him halfway through his own dinner, by one of the smaller fires at the edge of the camp. He’s alone, but she thinks it’s mostly to prove a point.

“Taking a break from being a dictator?” she shoots, which probably isn’t the best way to start this conversation, if she wants it to stay civil.

But—he’s being an idiot, and _mean_ , and she’s going to call him out on it.

He grunts up at her, not bothering to even look, so she folds down in front of him, directly in his line of sight.

“You snuck onto the dropship,” she says, and he chokes a little. “That’s why you don’t want the Ark to come down. You think you’ll get in trouble.”

Bellamy glares at her as he catches his breath. Finally, he growls “How’d you find out?”

Clarke snorts, and he glowers. “You’re not subtle,” she teases, nudging his boot with her own. “You won’t get in trouble,” she says, and now he doesn’t look angry so much as exasperated.

“You don’t even know what I did to—” he cuts himself off. “You really believe they’ll just come down, and suddenly all of us are Scott-free? It doesn’t work like that, princess.”

“You can call me Clarke,” she chirps. “I heard you say it, at the library. I know you can.” He gives a smile, but it’s more like a grimace, and she softens her voice. “I don’t mean they’re going to take us back with open arms,” she explains. “I mean—what are they going to do? We’re on _earth_. There are a million miles here. In space, it was easy to keep us locked up, controlled. Down here, if they try anything we don’t like, we can leave.”

“You really think it’s that easy?”

“If they try to hurt you—or any of us—we’ll leave,” she declares, and Bellamy stares at her.

The moment stretches, and she almost thinks the conversation’s finished, but then he blurts “I shot the Chancellor.” He looks and sounds desperate, staring at her, pleading. Begging her to understand.

Clarke blinks. “Okay.”

Bellamy looks like he’s not breathing. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she nods. “You seem oddly convinced I’m going to _hate_ you for shooting the man who executed my father.”

“You were mad about the people on the Ark,” Bellamy frowns, clearly confused. “I thought—”

“Most of the people on the Ark are innocent,” Clarke shrugs. “They didn’t do anything wrong. Thelonious—Jaha, he’s—I grew up with him. _My dad_ grew up with him, and he still had him killed for trying to do the right thing. _That’s_ wrong.”

Bellamy nods and then glances down at his feet, shamed. “You were right about the bracelets,” he admits. “The people on the Ark—they deserve to see this place.”

“And if they try to control us again, we’ll leave,” Clarke says.

“Most of the kids won’t want to leave their parents,” he muses, and she shrugs.

“They don’t have to. It could be just you and me and Octavia. We’ll still leave.” Now he’s staring at her openly, and she fidgets a little. “You could become a librarian,” she babbles. “And—I worked at the clinic with my mom for a while, so I could maybe be a doctor, or something. Octavia could take over the world.”

Bellamy snorts, and studies her. “What about your mom?”

Clarke startles for a moment. She’s done her best to not think of Abby since her arrest—the odds that she’s even still alive are pretty small. She’d probably known about the system flaw. If Jaha hadn’t spared Jake—his _best friend_ —he wouldn’t blink twice at floating her mom.

“If she’s alive,” she starts, but she can’t even finish the sentence. _If_ her mother’s alive, will she even see her again? How much time does she have left on the station? What if she doesn’t survive the fall to earth? These are things Clarke can’t think about, and so she stops herself.

Bellamy reaches over and tugs her in without a word. His breath is hot on her hair, and comforting. “We’ll figure it out,” he murmurs. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“What do we do in the meantime?”

She can feel his smirk against her hairline. “Whatever the hell you want,” he jokes, and everything inside her goes cold.

It wasn’t the spirit’s voice—it was _him_ , Bellamy, saying those words. Clarke hasn’t thought about them since that day, but she _knows_ them, remembers them instantly. Bellamy feels her go tense in his arms, and pulls back to look at her.

“What’s wrong?”

Clarke wets her lips and he follows the movement. She does her best not to shudder at the tone of his voice. “Do you believe in fate?” He starts to grin, like it’s a joke, and she scowls. “I’m serious.”

He raises a brow, but doesn’t question it. “I think we all make our own choices,” he says.

“But do you think there’s something that pushes us towards one choice or another?” she presses. She’s never told anyone—not even Wells. Something about the existence of them felt like wishes; if she told, they wouldn’t come true.

But, she’d never told anyone about her father and why he died, either, until Bellamy. And it had helped.

“What, like a higher power?” he asks, genuinely curious. “I used to pray to the planets, when I was a kid. Well, the Gods the planets were named after, but I thought they lived there, so I prayed to them. Neptune, especially.”

Clarke grins, feeling fond. “How old were you?”

Bellamy shrugs, but he’s grinning too, like he can’t help it. His thumb keeps absently stroking her shoulder blade, and she doesn’t think he’s noticed. “I don’t know—little. Before O, and maybe a little after. I stopped when I was nine.”

“Why’d you stop?”

His hand stutters on her back. “They never listened. Eventually I stopped thinking they would.”

Clarke leans into him, and he shifts a little closer. “I saw spirits when I was a kid,” she starts, and he frowns.

“What, like, dead people?”

“More like—imaginary friends? But they’d tell me things, and then they’d happen. They told me the night before Wells—my best friend—was attacked in the cafeteria. I was able to stop it, but if I hadn’t known, he’d be dead.”

Bellamy hasn’t scoffed or pulled away yet, so she figures it’s safe. Mostly he’s just watching the fire, and listening. “When did they stop?”

“They didn’t,” she admits. “Or, well. They did for a while, when I was a teenager. But they showed up the night before my dad was arrested. They told me to let him go, but I couldn’t, and so I was arrested to. And then one of them appeared in my cell, right before we were sent here.”

“So you think they—your spirits—are fate?”

“I think they might be,” Clarke shrugs. She’s never really tried to unravel the spirits’ magic; it seemed like a good way to scare them away. And besides, she isn’t sure she’d prefer their riddle solved. “Or something like it. I don’t know, but—the last one, before we came to earth, she said _whatever the hell you want_. Like you just did.”

Bellamy frowns. “You don’t think I’m possessed, do you?” Clarke huffs a laugh.

“I think I was supposed to find you,” she says, and glances up to find him staring down at her. His eyes look warm—and _hungry_.

The snap of foot-on-tree-branch breaks the moment, and they jump in surprise. Monroe’s looking at them sheepishly, a few feet away.

“Sorry to, uh, _interrupt_ ,” she says, blushing furiously, and Clarke suddenly remembers she’s practically sitting in Bellamy’s lap. “But Sterling thinks he twisted his ankle.”

“He _thinks_?” Clarke asks, standing up. She refuses to be embarrassed.

Monroe makes a face. “Well, it’s pretty swollen—and there’s, like, this green puss that’s coming from—”

Clarke waves a hand, starting off for the makeshift clinic. “Explain on the way,” she orders, all-business. She does _try_ not to glance back at Bellamy, but she’s only human. When she does, she finds him staring after her, eyes gleaming in the light.

He finds her in the dropship that night. She’s expecting Octavia to come trailing in after him, but he’s alone when he falls into the cot beside hers.

“How’s the kid?” he asks with a sigh, settling in. Clarke rolls over so she’s facing him, just a few inches of space in between.

“He’ll live.” She makes a face. “Monroe was right about the puss, though. I think he had an allergic reaction to one of the plants. Monty says he can get clippings to pass around the camp, so we can determine who should stay away from what.”

“That’s a good idea,” Bellamy mumbles, clearly exhausted. “Charlotte—the young one, twelve maybe? She’s been having nightmares about the Ark.”

“I’m not surprised.” Clarke studies him for a moment. He’s draped an arm over his eyes, with his knees bent up so he fits on the cot. “What’d you tell her?”

“That everyone gets them,” he shrugs. “And that if she needs to talk about it, to find you or me.”

Clarke bites back a smile, even though he wouldn’t see. “Where’s Octavia?”

Bellamy huffs out a laugh. “Camped out by the piglets, with Finn and Harper.”

“You’re not worried about leaving her out there unsupervised?” Clarke teases, and he raises his arm to squint at her. “There are _boys_ , Bellamy.”

She thinks he’s about to make a face at her, or maybe shoot a snide _shut up, princess_ , but instead he reaches over and pinches her side so she yelps. He laughs when she glares at him, but then she kicks him in the shin, _hard_ , and he looks back at her grimly.

“You really want to do this?” he says, serious, and Clarke almost says no.

“Bring it,” she shoots, and he rolls on top of her, successfully pinning her down. “You cheated,” she huffs, wiggling her arms and legs, testing his hold on them. Bellamy’s laugh is cut off by a pained grimace, and she stops. “What’s wrong?”

“I—” he licks his lips, looking down at her, and she flushes. “I may not have thought this through,” he admits, and it takes her a moment to realize he’s blushing too, and another moment to realize _why_.

Clarke gives a feral grin. “What do you mean?” she asks, all fake innocence, and wiggles some more.

Bellamy coughs. “Clarke,” he hisses, and then narrows his eyes at her grin. “You won’t win this,” he warns.

“Pretty sure I’m already winning.” She grinds up experimentally, and he ducks his head down to her shoulder with a groan. “Yep,” she chirps, popping the _p_. “I’m _definitely_ winning.”

“Don’t be too sure,” he says, voice low and rumbling on her skin, and he presses a wet kiss to the slope where her neck meets her shoulder. He glances up, clearly nervous. “Is this okay?”

His grip on her hands has gone slack, so Clarke snakes one down to curl around the back of his neck, digging into his scalp until he hums. “More than,” she says, and kisses him.

Bellamy tastes like that night’s dinner, warm and heavy in her mouth, and a little bit like dirt, but it’s perfect. He tastes like the earth. Kisses like it too, warm and hard and solid, something she can cling to.

But then his mouth is moving, trailing wet, sloppy kisses down her jaw and neck, and he tugs at her shirt to suck shiny hickeys on her breasts and the swell of her stomach.

“Fuck,” he breathes, hot on her skin, as his fingers flirt with the button of her pants. “Have you ever done this before?”

“Once,” Clarke nods, and his fingers are slipping down inside the hem of her trousers, and it’s getting hard to _think_. “But it was—different.”

Bellamy’s head snaps up, even as his hand keeps moving against her, finding a rhythm she can match. “Different how?” he presses. “Was he—”

“ _She_ was a girl,” Clarke smirks, and reaches down to pull off her pants, herself. Bellamy stares down at the cream of her thighs, tracing his hands up her skin, but nowhere near where she wants them. “ _Bellamy_ ,” she whines. “Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet.”

He doesn’t even glance at her, just dips down until his mouth is pressed up against her cunt. “Never,” he sighs, and licks into her.

Thalia had done this, dipping her head under Clarke’s skirt after the Unity Day dance, and it had felt nice, and warm, and heady.

But Bellamy isn’t soft with her, like Thalia, or tentative. This is not the newborn curiosity of a teenager. Bellamy fucks her with his tongue until she’s arching in the air, and then he moves his mouth up to her clit and she collapses.

The cot collapses, too, and they land in a heap on the ground.

Bellamy’s laughter lands loud and warm on her belly, and once she’s caught her breath, Clarke’s laughing too until tears leak from her eyes. She pulls him up to kiss him long and messy, and he hums into her mouth with a grin.

“I was better, right?” he hedges, nuzzling her hair, and she shoves at him.

“Bet I can get you off faster,” she goads, sliding down to kneel between his thighs. She’s never done this, not with a boy at least, and she’s a little nervous, but mostly she just wants to see if she can make him squirm.

“I bet you can, too,” Bellamy agrees, huffing a curse when she just tries to deep-throat him, first thing.

They’re both right, in the end.

Jasper wakes them in the morning, curled up on Bellamy’s cot under a mound of old Ark-issued blankets. He looks infuriatingly smug.

“Wake up mom and dad; we’ve got breakfast and everything,” he crows, hopping outside when Bellamy goes to throw a boot at him.

“Ungrateful brat,” he mumbles into her hair, smacking obnoxious kisses across her face until she laughs and shoves him away.

 Bellamy has the kids finishing up the wall and front gates, fortifying them as best they can, while Clarke snags a tent for her and Bellamy.

Octavia finds her as she’s setting it up, just a little away from the rest of the group, so everyone will know where to find them. She’s got her piglet strapped to her chest in some sort of makeshift sling, made out of a harness from the dropship seats. Clarke raises a brow.

“It keeps him calm,” Octavia shrugs, swaying experimentally. O.J. kicks his legs a little and blinks. She looks from the half-finished tent, to Clarke, and smirks. “Is that for you and my brother?”

Clarke worries her lip a little; she and Octavia are friends, _best_ friends apparently, so she’s not sure why she’s nervous about this. “Does it bother you?”

O snorts, and Clarke feels a rush of relief. “Hardly. He’s been spending all his spare time staring at your boobs; at least now he’ll stop _moping_ when you hang out with Spacewalker.”

Clarke bites back a grin. “He’s been moping?”

“Like a baby,” Octavia makes a face. “Honestly, it’s embarrassing.” She seems to realize what she’s said, and tries to backtrack. “Not that you should dump him, or anything,” she adds hastily. “He’s not _that_ bad.”

“Don’t worry,” Clarke says, glancing over at where Bellamy’s teaching Charlotte how to braid rope. “I think I’ll keep him.”

“Good.” Octavia marches over and picks up one of the makeshift tent poles, stabbing it harshly into the ground. “So, pick a name for your little guy, yet?”

Clarke shakes her head, draping the parachute over the pole. “I don’t even know its gender.”

“Neither do the rest of us,” Octavia points out. “Bell’s positive his is a girl, though. The _only_ girl, and the runt—he’s so predictable.”

“Hey mom,” Jasper calls, cheerily marching up with Monty in tow and, surprisingly, Murphy lagging only a few steps behind them. Jasper sees Octavia and flushes. “Light of my life,” he nods, and O grins.

Clarke frowns back at him. “Stop calling me that,” she chides, but he pretends not to hear.

“We found something you might be interested in,” he waggles his eyebrows pointedly.

Behind him, Murphy rolls his eyes. “ _Green_ found something,” he corrects, but Jasper just shrugs.

“It better not be another weird bug,” Clarke warns darkly as she stands to follow. “I have had my fill of giant mutant cockroaches.”

“That was _one time_ ,” Jasper whines, and she glares at him.

“And that’s one time too many.”

It’s not a giant mutant cockroach.

“Is that…alcohol?” Clarke stares down at the bucket filled with the bitter-smelling liquid. She wrinkles her nose at the scent.

Monty and Jasper share a look. “Well,” Monty starts, “Yes and no.”

Murphy heaves a sigh, and steps between the pair. “These idiots were trying to make you a disinfectant,” he explains, sounding for all the world like he’d rather be anywhere but here, in this situation. “But instead they made vodka.”

“It’s pure alcohol,” Monty argues, giving Murphy a withering look. “It should work as disinfectant, too.”

“ _And_ get us wasted,” Jasper adds helpfully. Clarke eyes them each in turn.

“I’ll look for some containers in the dropship,” she decides, giving a final glance down at the bucket. “But we’ll probably need more,” she gives them a stern glare. “For _medicine_. We’ll discuss the possibility of _drinking_ it later.”

“Thanks mom,” Murphy says snidely, and Clarke stomps on his foot as she passes.

Harper’s pulling on a shirt when Clarke steps onto the dropship, and she’s about to apologize when she notices Finn off to the side, shirtless, zipping his pants. He offers a shaky smile, while Harper flushes furiously.

“Oh,” Clarke says dumbly, and then shrugs. “Sorry. Have either of you seen any jars, or small containers?”

“For what?” Finn asks, while Harper makes some excuse and scurries away. Clarke makes a mental note to find her later, and assure her she needn’t be embarrassed. The first two days alone, the delinquents were all screwing each other wherever and whenever they could.

 _Not everyone_ , she reminds herself. _Not you. Not Bellamy._

“Monty and Jasper made moonshine, for the clinic,” she says, rifling through the first few crates of supplies. Most of them are empty by now, looted that first day, but she’s hoping to find a few hollowed out cans of protein or something.

“I’m sorry,” Finn says, closer than he was before, and she startles. “About Harper. If it offended you at all.”

Clarke frowns back at him. He still hasn’t put his shirt back on, and she’s not sure why. Isn’t he cold? “It didn’t offend me,” she shrugs, turning back to the crate. “You’re free to do whatever you want, and Harper’s nice. I’m glad for you guys.”

“You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met,” Finn grins, and Clarke glances over to find him looking at her. He reaches out to tug on her hair, and she flinches.

“You don’t even really know me.”

“We should change that,” Finn decides amiably, dropping his hand. “The earth seems like a good place to start friendships.” He picks three cleaned out jam jars from a crate. “Is this what you need?”

Clarke reaches out for them, and the rest in the box, cradling them all to her chest haphazardly. Finn opens his mouth, probably to offer to help her carry the jars, but frankly this whole conversation has been a little bizarre, and Clarke’s more than ready to end it. “Yes, thanks! See you.”

She leaves the boys to fill the jars, and a fallen tree lands on a few of the kids so Clarke spends most of the day pulling splinters, and setting sprained wrists and ankles. Luckily there’s only one broken bone, Charlotte’s ring finger, and it’s easily splinted.

“Now you can get out of hard labor,” Clarke tells her conspiratorially, but Charlotte frowns.

“I don’t want to get out of work,” she says fiercely. “I want to help.”

“Well, you can help me in the clinic,” Clarke offers. “And I know Octavia needs help with the pigs. We’re going to breed them for food.” She’d talked it over with Bellamy that morning, and then convinced Octavia that even if O.J. was off the menu, his future children shouldn’t be.

Charlotte seems to think it over and then gives a professional nod, before hopping off of the stool. She glances up at the doorway and grins.

“That’ll be a pretty badass battle scar,” Bellamy says, striding in. “I think O’s looking for an assistant, if you wanna go help her.”

Charlotte nods and scurries off, leaving them alone in the tent. Clarke smirks up at him. “You’re such a _dad_ ,” she teases.

He narrows his eyes at her. “Well I _was_ going to give you this,” he displays what looks like an enormous strawberry, nearly the size of Clarke’s palm, and a deep royal purple. “But now I don’t know if you deserve it.”

“I absolutely deserve it,” Clarke argues, reaching out a hand. “For putting up with your snoring all night.”

Bellamy smirks. “Not _all_ night.” Clarke flushes, and snatches the fruit from his hand.

“Hey, what did you name your piglet?” she asks around a mouthful.

“Selene.” Clarke snorts, and he frowns at her. “What’s so funny about that?”

“Nothing,” she says, swallowing. “It’s just exactly the sort of name you’d come up with. O’s right; you _are_ predictable.”

Bellamy stares at her, affronted. “Selene is a perfectly acceptable name—why, what’s _your_ piglet named?”

Clarke shrugs, licking the juice from her fingers. She can feel Bellamy’s eyes tracking the movement, but pretends not to notice. “I haven’t yet,” she says, and he snorts. “I’m waiting for the right one.”

“How will you know _the right one_?” Bellamy teases, kicking his feet up on the stool.

“I’ll know,” she says primly, and pulls the stool out from under him.

He kisses her in their tent that night, licking at the roof of her mouth. He hums and pulls back, just enough to speak. “You taste like strawberry,” he grins, and she tugs him back down.

“You have no one to blame but yourself,” she replies, and presses a kiss to the freckles on his cheek, the dimple in his chin, the scar above his upper lip. His hand slides down to palm her thigh, and he digs his fingers into the skin there until she moans.

“Selene was a moon goddess,” he says later, voice low and hoarse against the skin of her neck. They’re still breathing heavy, and she’s half on top of him, having foregone the cot completely and just made a nest of old blankets and parachutes. “The Romans called her Luna, and thought she actually _was_ the moon.”

“The Romans were weird,” Clarke says muzzily, and he laughs. “Weren’t they also weird about their siblings? You’d fit right in.”

He pinches her thigh. “Shut up. Selene was the Greek name—”

“Right, because _they_ were better.”

He cranes his neck to stare down at her. “Would you be quiet and let me tell the story?”

Clarke gives a dramatic sigh, but settles in against him so she can trace the ridges of his stomach with her hand. It’s really the least he can do. “Okay, go on, then.”

“Selene was a moon goddess, and she drove a silver chariot pulled by two snow-white, winged horses.”

“Fascinating,” Clarke yawns, and she can practically _feel_ him pout against her hair. She nudges him in the chest with her shoulder and strokes up his calf with her foot. “Keep going,” she coos. “I’ll be good.”

Bellamy huffs a laugh. “I don’t believe that for a second, princess.” But then he says, “Selene fell in love with the shepherd Endymion, who used to fall asleep in a cave—”

“He slept in a _cave_?”

“You realize we are sleeping under a sack held up with metal sticks, right?”

Clarke huffs and wiggles back against him until his hands grip her hips to hold her still. His thumbs rub the skin there absently, which is what she really wanted anyway. “I see your point. Was it at least, like, a magic cave or something?”

“It was the cave on Mount Latmus,” Bellamy says, like it’s obvious, and Clarke snorts.

“Right. _That_ cave, how could I forget?”

“ _Anyway_ , Endymion used to fall asleep in the cave, where Selene could watch him every night—”

“Creepy,” Clarke decides, and Bellamy bites her ear.

“You’re really bad at this whole not-interrupting thing,” he tells her.

“I’m just saying, if I ever catch you watching me while I sleep, I’m throwing you out of the tent.”

“Noted. So, Selene watched him sleep in his cave, and she thought he was so beautiful that she asked Zeus to make him sleep there eternally, so he would never age or die. She visited him every night, and eventually bore him fifty daughters, who became the fifty months of the Olympiad.”

“Wait, so she _raped_ him and then gave birth to _fifty kids_? Bellamy, that’s gross, and wrong on so many different levels.”

Bellamy huffs a breath against her shoulder, clearly annoyed. “It’s seen as an act of great love,” he explains, and then pauses. “But, yeah, you’re right. Fucking him while he slept is kind of creepy.”

“That whole story is creepy,” Clarke laughs, and keeps laughing until he slants his mouth over hers to shut her up.

Clarke’s on the edge of sleep when shouting starts up outside the tent, and she feels Bellamy stir underneath her. She blinks and sits up as he stands and roots through their clothes on the floor, tossing her underwear and pants. She can’t find her bra, and just grabs his extra shirt before running out barefoot, with Bellamy right behind her.

“What’s going on?” she asks the nearest delinquent—Roma, she’s pretty sure, who’s also wearing a too-big boy shirt. She glances at Clarke’s, and they high five.

“Finn thinks it’s a shooting star,” she says, pointing up at the object hurtling down through the atmosphere.

But Clarke knows what shooting stars look like, and this—with its tail of smoke, and flashing lights—is not it.

The hundred watch it fall to the earth, before it lands with a crash somewhere in the forest.

“It must have come from the Ark,” Clarke decides, turning to find Bellamy looking out at the trees with a frown. She reaches over to fold a hand around his, and he looks down at her. “Whatever happens, we’re together on it,” she says, firm. He squeezes her hand.

“We should wait until sunrise to search for it,” he suggests, and she nods.

The rest of the delinquents are chattering excitedly, swapping theories and morning plans. They’re all suddenly wide-awake with the adrenaline of hope, and it takes nearly an hour for the camp to quiet down again.

Clarke sits up with Bellamy in their tent, leaning her head against his shoulder while he plays with the ends of her hair. She’s waiting for him to say something—he’s clearly holding back, but she doesn’t want to press it.

Finally, he says “Your hair.”

Clarke blinks at him. “ _What_?”

“Your hair,” he repeats. “It’s my favorite part of you. Well,” he considers, “Maybe your eyes.”

Clarke smirks a little, if only to hide the fact that her heart’s stopped beating. “Not my boobs? I’m impressed.”

“Nope,” Bellamy chirps, reaching down to grope her. “Okay—it might be a tie.”

Clarke laughs and kisses him.

When she pulls back, he squeezes her hip. “What’s your favorite part of me?” He’s teasing, eyes bright. “I mean, I know it’s hard to choose because _all_ of me is fantastic, but—”

“Obviously it’s your humility,” she says wryly, and he grins. She could probably leave it there, make it a joke, and he’d let her, but—she gets the sense that he doesn’t get compliments often. Not like this, not the kind that _matter_. She reaches up to stroke her thumb along his cheekbone, and his eyes flutter at the touch. “Your freckles,” she decides, reaching up to press her mouth to a few scattered on his jaw.

“My _freckles_?”

She grins against his skin. “Maybe your nerdiness.” She noses against his neck. “I like your stories.”

He curls an arm around her, and rolls so they’re on their sides. “I knew it,” he says, smug. There’s a pause, and she almost falls asleep, thinking he won’t say what’s on his mind, after all. But then, “There are a lot of people on the Ark.”

Clarke frowns, but she’s turned away so he can’t see her. “Are you worried about supplies? I was thinking they’d probably bring some. We might have the farm going by then—”

“No. I just—the Ark is smaller than earth, but there are a lot of people. You lived in Alpha.”

Her frown deepens; she’s not sure where he’s going with this. It’s been a while since any of the hundred have mentioned her life of privilege, and she doesn’t really want to go back to that. “Yeah. And you lived in Factory. So?”

He’s playing with her hair again, and she presses back against him. “So, we probably never would have met in space,” he explains, and Clarke rolls around so that she’s facing him.

“ _That’s_ what’s bothering you?”

Bellamy makes a face. “You said you think it was fate, us meeting, but—”

“Bellamy,” Clarke reaches up to push the hair from his face. There’s a wrinkle between his brows, like the one she gets when she’s angry or concentrating too hard. Her mom used to brush it away with her thumb, and so Clarke does that now, smoothing the lines of his face. “I would have found you, no matter what.” She shrugs, because now he’s staring at her, and the moment feels altogether too serious. “That’s what fate is. I think I’ll always find you.”

He wraps a hand around both of her wrists—one around the Ark-issued bracelet, and the other around her father’s watch—and brings first one palm and then the other to his mouth. It’s just a press of his lips, barely even a kiss, but it still makes her breath catch.

She means to stay awake the whole night, watching him, because it’s hard to look away. But her eyes fall shut without her realizing it, and she wakes to him gently shaking her, as the pale light of dawn leaks through the tent.

Finn’s waiting for them at the front gate, along with Octavia and Monty and Jasper and half a dozen other delinquents, each with some sort of bag packed and hitched on their shoulders, each more anxiously excited than the last.

“No,” Bellamy shakes his head at them sternly. “No way. We’re traveling light—me, Clarke, Spacewalker, Monty and Murphy.” There’s a half-hearted bit of groaning about favoritism, but Bellamy’s glare shuts them up. “While we’re gone, Miller and O are in charge. Everyone, you know your jobs, now get back to work. We should be back before dinner.”

“If any of you get hurt, go to Octavia or Monroe,” Clarke adds. They head into the trees.

Tracking the thing isn’t hard; they all saw where it fell, and have a general idea of where it landed, but it still seems like an abstract thought until they actually _see_ it.

“It’s a dropship,” Clarke breathes, and for the first time, she lets herself feel hopeful.

“It’s a _dinosaur_ ,” Murphy says, knocking on the rusted metal. It doesn’t sound hollow, but there’s no other sound for the first minute.

Then they hear a faint groan, a _human_ groan, and scramble to get the door open.

It’s heavy, and they have to wedge Murphy’s makeshift tomahawk into the crack to get it to budge, but they do, and it falls down with the croak of ancient hinges. Sunlight falls into the pod, and Clarke’s the first in line, so she’s the first to see the girl.

She’s barely conscious, with a bleeding head wound, but nothing that looks fatal. Bellamy reaches in with his knife to help her cut the girl free of her harness, and they drag her outside.

The fresh air hits her face, and she wakes with a sudden choking gasp, eyes blinking open.

“Jaha,” she croaks, and Clarke freezes, so the girl limps on without her. She catches sight of Finn, who’s gone still a few feet away, and they seem to know each other because suddenly she’s launching herself at him with a grin.

Clarke doesn’t stay to watch. She ducks back into the ship, trying to steady her breathing as her eyes pass over the controls, the dangling wires, the bits of metal that don’t seem to have any real point.

And then she sees him, collapsed over in the corner, with a medical oxygen mask over his mouth. She calls out, and Murphy gets there first, helping her drag Wells out by his arms, until they can reach him at a better angle.

They lay him out on the grass in the sun, and she can see a dozen cuts on his face and arms, and a nasty bruise forming on his forehead, but his chest is rising steadily as she peels off the mask.

“Looks like the Ark royalty’s reunited again,” Murphy sneers, spitting down just inches from Wells’ cheek. “Congrats.”

Clarke ignores him, ignores everything but the feel of Wells’ heart beating surely under her palm. “Wake up,” she whispers. Pleads. She presses her hand more firmly to his chest, and speaks louder. “Wake up.”

Wells blinks in the sunlight. He makes a face at the pain, and Clarke laughs, shaky and triumphant.

“Welcome to earth.”


	3. Every Single Night Pray The Sun'll Rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He can hear Raven, somewhere in his periphery. She’s swearing, he thinks, but it’s hard to make out. Everything is muffled, somehow.
> 
> He wants to tell her it’s alright. That she should just let him go, even though he suspects she’s like him, clinging to things even when they shouldn’t. She probably does it out of spite, and if he could, he’d laugh at that.
> 
> And then all at once, air floods into his lungs and he’s gasping, eyes blinking open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT I'M DONE. It ends on a very open note, for two reasons:
> 
> reason 1: because I like to see you all suffer.  
> reason 2: because I want you all to decide what happened next. 
> 
> I might one day come back to this fic, but it is very unlikely, so please don't hold your breath or anything. I actually do like the ending left where it is.

Wells isn’t sure what to do with his last night on the Ark. It feels like he should spend this time saying goodbye, but—he’s not sure who to say goodbye _to_. His father would have him arrested for treason, and Raven would be…

Wells shakes the thought from his head. She won’t be floated, because they’re not going to get caught. He has exactly fifteen hours before they drop down to the earth, or blow up trying to get there, and he feels oddly calm about it. It’s a defense mechanism, he’s pretty sure. He’ll panic eventually. Hopefully by the time it really hits him, he’ll be dead or on the ground.

He visits the temple room. Nygel’s there, in her malignant corner, and she glares when he steps in. But he ignores her, and heads to one of the folding chairs set out for Vera’s congregation. He takes one in the very back, kneeling down to the floor before sitting. It’s a sign of respect, and even though he hasn’t done it in six years, that sort of muscle memory is hard to forget.

Halfway through, Wells feels someone slide into the seat beside him, and turns to find Marcus Kane. He’s staring straight ahead, focused on his mother, but Wells knows he sat by him for a reason.

Wells doesn’t really have much history with Marcus—he used to eat dinner at their apartment sometimes, back when Wells’ mom was still alive, but he doesn’t remember much about that. Mostly they just nod when they pass each other in the corridors, or when Thelonious has Wells sit in on their meetings, to _get a feel for leadership_.

The homily ends with the evening prayer; Wells and Marcus dip their heads in time with everyone else, and murmur the words. Then the others begin to file out, until they’re the only ones left in the row.

Marcus catches Wells by the arm. It doesn’t hurt, but. It’s still pretty uncomfortable. “You need to speak with your father,” he warns darkly, and for a second Wells thinks he’s somehow found out.

Wells shakes his arm free gently, forcing himself not to react. “About…?” he hedges, and Marcus frowns.

“There’s a system failure in the Ark,” he admits, though it clearly pains him to do so, and Wells breathes easy. He’d almost forgotten he’s not supposed to know about the oxygen shortage, and does his best to seem shocked. “There needs to be a culling,” Marcus says firmly, and Wells can’t help his scowl.

Sending one hundred children to their deaths wasn’t enough for them—now they needed a _culling_? Were they going to take volunteers, or just cut off the air to Factory, or Mecha, or one of the other poorer sections? The unnecessary ones, easily discarded.

“I take it my father doesn’t agree,” Wells says, tone even.

“He thinks we should wait,” Marcus frowns. “But the longer we wait, the more will have to die when it happens.”

The problem with the Council, Wells decides, is that they believe the world exists only in gray areas. They see the Ark as one enormous factory, with them as the CEO’s, who have to make the _tough decisions_ no one else will. They have to do the firing, and the budget cuts, even when there are other options. They think the _tough_ decision is the _right_ one, even when it’s not. Even when the choice is easy, black and white.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Wells assures him, stepping away. He walks up to Vera, where she’s with that year’s waterer, a young boy around nine years old. He has a dusting of freckles on his cheeks, and tufts of copper hair growing every which way from his head. Wells wonders which station he’s from—if he’s one of the lives Marcus would so easily chalk up to _necessary casualties._

“Young Mr. Jaha,” Vera smiles, taking him in for a hug. Wells hugs her back a little tighter than he probably should, but. She smells like warm comfort, like a _mom_. He’s missed this. He still does, when he can let himself.

“I’m sorry I’ve been distant,” he says, and he means it. Vera just waves a hand, and gestures to the boy.

“Wells, this is Torin. Torin, maybe we could let Wells do today’s watering.”

Wells almost says no, but this part is muscle memory too, and there’s comfort in that. In taking the water pitcher, hands firm around the handle, tipping it _just so_ , letting a trickle of water pour out over the Bonsai. There’s comfort in watching as the soil turns dark with moisture, and he wonders if this is what he’ll see in just hours. Rain hitting earth, turning it the color of his skin all around him. The smell of wet leaves and _life_.

“Thank you.” He hands the pitcher back, and leaves.

His feet take him to Clarke’s apartment, and he almost turns away before deciding better of it. He should tell Abby, at least. Then, if something happens, if he and Raven burn to death in the atmosphere, or suffocate in space, someone will know.

And if she has a message for her daughter, he should be the one to deliver it. He knocks on the door.

There’s no answer, so he slides down against the metal wall to wait. Technically, he could break in. He knows the code; he and Clarke swapped numbers so they could let themselves in.

But Clarke’s not inside, and it would feel strange, going in to wait for someone who isn’t her.

He doesn’t realize he’s fallen asleep, until Abby shakes him awake. She looks tired, and twice her age. Her eyes are red, like she’s been crying, and she looks thinner, too. Abby Griffin does not wear worry well.

“Wells, what’s wrong?” she asks, professional. “Is it Thelonious? What happened?”

Wells shakes his head, mouth still dry like cotton from sleep. He should have thought of what to say, how to explain himself. Does he mention Raven, or let her think he’s going alone? He doesn’t think she’ll turn them in, but.

He hadn’t thought she’d turn in her husband and daughter, either. It’s probably best not to gamble this.

“I’m going to earth,” he says, and Abby frowns. She feels his forehead, like she’s checking for a fever, and he huffs a wry laugh. If only. “I’m going down to help Clarke, and the hundred,” he clarifies. “I found an old dropship, and fixed it up.”

“Since when do you know anything about mechanics?” Abby asks, suspicious, and Wells shrugs.

“I’m leaving tonight. I thought,” he hesitates, but it’s too late to second-guess himself _now_. “I thought you might like me to give a message to Clarke.”

Abby stares for a moment, clearly thrown. Then she stands and unlocks the door. “Come inside,” she says firmly, and then locks the door behind them.

She rifles around under the sink for a few minutes, before coming back with a small med kit. “It’s not much,” she warns, but Wells just shakes his head and takes it. Abby might not have been a great mom, but she’d been the only one he’d had for years after his own died.

She hugs him, and it’s less comforting than Vera’s; she’s colder, and less sure. But it’s something, and Wells holds her until he’s convinced she’ll be able to stand up on her own when he leaves.

“Tell her I love her,” she pleads. “And tell her—tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I’m proud of her.”

“Okay,” Wells nods, clutching the little box. He steps out into the corridor, legs still pins and needles from his nap. “Good luck, Abby.”

“You too,” she whispers. “May we meet again.” She shuts the door.

“May we meet again,” he echoes, but there’s no one there to hear it.

He writes his father three letters, each shorter than the last, but none quite right. In the end he throws them all out, and mourns the loss of the paper.

But leaving without saying goodbye seems like a cowardly thing to do, so Wells finds his father in his study.

Thelonious glances up from his tablet and frowns over at his son. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Wells says, and then reconsiders. He and his father have never really had this sort of relationship, where he would ever walk in just to chat. It’ll probably seem suspicious. “I just wondered if you had any of those old-world games we could watch?”

Thelonious gives Wells his most pitying look, which actually doesn’t look all that sympathetic. Mostly he just looks tired. “Is this about Clarke?”

“Yes,” Wells says, and he even means it. He never really cared about the sport itself, but Clarke did, and his dad did, and it felt nice to have something he could share with them. But now Clarke’s gone, and her dad, and Wells hasn’t done much of anything with Thelonious in a very long time.

“Son,” Thelonious sighs, taking off his glasses to rub at the skin between his brows. “You have to let her go. You have to focus on the big picture—on the grand scale.”

“I’m not that good at letting go,” Wells admits.

Thelonious studies him for a moment, and then seems to come to a decision. He shuts off his tablet, and stands from his chair. The smile he gives is sort of pathetic, more of a wince than anything, but he’s _trying_. “I might have one of the World Cups laying around somewhere.”

He falls asleep within moments—without the Griffins, loud and opinionated and bold, it’s a pretty quiet affair. And his father may not be a great leader, may not even be the leader the Ark needs, but he does put everything he’s got into the role. He does his job like he’s expecting it to kill him—and maybe it will.

Wells mutes the vid, but leaves it running. He’s not sure he’s ever watched a game the whole way through. He still doesn’t really get it, but—it feels good, to finish something. He pours a blanket over his dad on the sofa, grabs his bag packed with rations and Abby’s med kit, and slips out the door.

He’s there before Raven, and almost panics all over again, but then she comes rushing in, breathing heavy. She sees him sitting by the dropship and lets out a breath. “Damn.”

Wells raises a brow. “What?”

“I thought for sure I’d beat you here,” she scowls, and Wells bites back on a grin. Raven’s a sore loser, he’s come to find out, and exceptionally competitive. It’s a volatile combination.

“You can be the first inside, if you’d like,” he offers, and she scoffs, marching over.

“I don’t need your pity prizes, Jaha,” she snaps, and catches sight of the suit in his hands. “What the fuck is _that_?”

Wells looks down. It’s a spacesuit, one of the old kinds, from what used to be the Soviet station. “I thought you might want it,” he says, feeling stupid. It’s _ancient_ , really, and probably doesn’t even work. It should have been recycled years ago, by all rights, but apparently even the Council had decided it didn’t hold much use, anymore.

Raven snatches it from his hands. “Of course I want it,” she says, harsher than usual, because that’s what she does when she cares. And, he’s learning, she _does_ care, deeply, about a lot. But she usually throws it all at her work, or her boyfriend, and now she has neither. Now she just has Wells, and she’s clearly not sure how to handle that.

He turns around so she can change into it, and she snorts at that, but lets it go. She’s used to changing brazenly, in front of all the other guys, because she knows they’re going to peek anyway, so why bother?

But when she clears his throat and he turns, she’s blushing a little, so he’s pretty sure it was worth it, not looking. He hates that _this_ —common decency, and gifts for no other reason than to _give_ —are enough to leave her flustered, unsure how to react. He hates that she’s used to being used, and looked down on.

He hates that she’s convinced she has to prove herself. He wishes he knew how to tell her she doesn’t.

“All set?” he asks, voice strained. Raven nods, all-business, and fits the helmet on her head with a smirk.

“Go big or go home, right?”

“Go big, _and_ go home,” Wells corrects, and she laughs.

They fit themselves inside, and she has to help him with the harness because he doesn’t know how. She swats at his hands when he tries to help, so he just lets her strap him in, so close that her warm breaths land on his neck. She’s taken off the helmet to see, and her hair’s a mess from it. He has to clench his fists so hard the nails leave half-moons in his palms, to keep from fixing her pony tail.

“How do you _not_ know this?” she demands, cross, as she snaps the last buckle.

“I’m pretty useless,” Wells agrees, and she scowls up at him.

“Stop that,” she snaps, going over to her own seat. “Stop acting like you’re not this—this fucking _saint_ , okay? You’re like, _impossibly_ good, so just fucking acknowledge it, and move on.”

Wells stares at the back of her head, because she’s very actively not looking at him. His mouth feels dry, so he can’t respond for a moment. “I’m not,” he says, finally, and it _hurts_ , that this is how she sees him.

Saint Wells Jaha, with the hero complex. The little king, and maybe he’s not a dictator, maybe he’s a benevolent ruler, but he’s still a ruler. He’s still up on that throne, with no idea how he got there, and no clue how to get down.

It hurts, because she’s wrong. He’s not selfless; if he was, he wouldn’t be here. He’d be trying to change the Council’s minds, or leak the truth out to the people, instead of running away in a dropship with someone else’s girlfriend.

He’s not, because if he was, he wouldn’t want her.

“You are,” Raven says, firm. “Now shut up, and let’s do this.”

She does a few things that go over his head—turning dials, and pressing buttons, and there’s the creaky hum of the ship coming to life. It wakes slowly, like a groggy old man that doesn’t want to leave bed. Wells feels a fresh wave of panic hit him all at once—the ship wasn’t even stripped for parts, it was so old, practically a relic—and he’s supposed to trust it _with his life_?

He needs to get out, he needs to breathe the fresh—well, maybe not fresh, but newly filtered—air of the Ark. He needs to grab Raven and just forget about this whole thing, forget about Clarke and the earth, and move on.

He needs to learn to let things go, like his dad.

That thought, ultimately, is what snaps Wells back to reality, just as Raven’s hand grabs his so hard his knuckles rub together.

“Okay?” she asks, tight, like she’s forcing herself to breathe evenly.

Wells squeezes her hand, just once, but it’s enough. They breathe out together. “Ready.”

“Please don’t let us die,” Raven says, and the ship begins to shake. They’re launching.

“Please don’t let us die,” Wells echoes, and he means to shut his eyes when they tumble out into space, but he can’t, and so he stares as the black rushes up to meet them. There are the pinpricks of stars, but they’re falling too fast for him to make them all out.

And then he realizes the pinpricks are his vision going black, as his breaths start to shallow. His hand goes limp in Raven’s, and she turns.

“ _Shit_ ,” she says, but it’s muffled by her helmet. “Wells!”

 _She called me Wells_ , he thinks, and then, _I’m dying_.

It’s not as terrible as he thought it would be.

His chest hurts, but the pain’s giving way to a numb nothing, slowly but surely. Soon, he knows, he won’t feel anything at all. His brain will be the last to go, so he might still be able to think for a while. If he doesn’t explode.

He’s always been a thinker, and this is no different. He feels like he’s floating, and he might be. He can’t feel his harness, anymore. He can’t see anything at all.

He can hear Raven, somewhere in his periphery. She’s swearing, he thinks, but it’s hard to make out. Everything is muffled, somehow.

He wants to tell her it’s alright. That she should just let him go, even though he suspects she’s like him, clinging to things even when they shouldn’t. She probably does it out of spite, and if he could, he’d laugh at that.

And then all at once, air floods into his lungs and he’s gasping, eyes blinking open.

He _is_ floating—Raven must have unhooked him, so she could better angle his head for the oxygen mask. It’s from the med kit, he thinks, and it’s not the best quality, and the air tastes like plastic, but he drinks it in anyway.

“You don’t get to fucking leave me _now_ ,” Raven snarls, once she sees he’s awake. “Can you hold this? I need to be at the controls.”

Wells tries to reach for the mask, but his hand isn’t listening. He glares at his arms, but they still don’t move, and Raven sighs. He feels her wrap the masks’ straps around his head, and tie them together.

Then they hit the atmosphere, and they both go flying.

“Fuck,” Raven grits, as Wells groans from where he’s landing across the floor. “I can’t lift you!”

He wants to tell her it’s fine, that she should just leave him there and focus on the landing, but his mouth doesn’t want to work with him, either. It’s taking everything he has just to breathe.

She seems to get the message, though, and rushes back to her seat. She does something with the buttons, and Wells means to just rest his eyes, because they’re _burning_ , but when he wakes, it’s to sunlight, and Clarke’s smile.

There’s something wet on his face, and it takes him a moment to realize she’s _crying_. He reaches up to wipe the tears off his cheeks, but his hand’s still a bit off, and he pokes himself in the eye.

He can feel something soft beneath him, like a carpet, and digs his fingers into _grass_.

He’s lying on grass, on the earth. He could do without the sunlight, though, and squints. It feels like needles in his eyes. He’s not sure yet if this is the afterlife or not. It definitely could be, if Vera was right all along. This is exactly how he might have pictured it, if he’d had the chance.

But he’s still a little disappointed, that the plan didn’t work. He’d rather see the ground alive. He hopes Raven isn’t dead, at least. He hopes she made it.

Clarke gives a watery laugh. “Welcome to earth,” she says, and Raven comes up to stand over him.

He stares up at her—there’s a cut on her head, but it’s not bleeding, and he’s never seen her look so smug. So _happy_.

A boy comes up and wraps his arms around her, and she laughs.

Wells closes his eyes to ease the burning. There probably isn’t pain in the afterlife, he decides. “Warm welcome.”

 

When Clarke walks into the medical tent, Wells is awake. He’d passed out again on the hike back to camp, and Bellamy and Finn had carried him back between them—largely because Murphy flat-out refused to touch him at all.

“Let him rot,” he’d spat, and Clarke had almost hit him in the face.

Raven beat her to it.

“You have _no_ fucking clue what he went through to get here,” she’d yelled, “He came here for you—for _all_ of you, because he wanted to help.” She’d turned back to Finn, looking desperate, and Clarke wondered if maybe he wasn’t the only reason this girl had come down.

“He’s the one who told me about you,” she’d said, voice breaking. “If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have even _known_ —” she’d broken off, and he’d held her a little before bending to throw Wells’s other arm over his shoulder.

“What happened?” Clarke demanded on the way over.

“Faulty air pressure regulator,” Raven explained bitterly. She kept glancing over to him, swaying unconsciously as they walked. “He gave me this old spacesuit, so I was okay, but. He started to suffocate. I barely got the mask on him in time.”

She was surprised when Clarke hugged her, and she hadn’t really even meant to, but—Wells was alive because of her. He was _here_ because of her. After a few awkward seconds, Raven reached around to pat her back, and it made Clarke smile.

“Thank you,” she said, pulling back, and Raven coughed a little.

“Yeah. Sure.”

They fell back behind the boys, and Murphy lagged somewhere behind them, still moping about his face. Monty was with him, probably trying to diffuse the situation. Monty hated when anybody fought.

“So how do you know Finn?” Clarke asked. She’d been putting the pieces together—Raven had _kissed_ him, long and hard, like it wasn’t the first time. But she’d been thinking about Harper, and she was pretty sure he’d slept with Roma too.

Raven smiled, soft and private. “We grew up together,” she said, easy, like she _liked_ talking about it, talking about him. Clarke’s heart sunk to her feet. She’d seen Wells’s eyes on her, on Finn’s arms all around her. She ached for her friend.

“Growing up, my mom was kind of shitty,” Raven continued with a shrug. “Finn was the boy next door. He’d give me half his rations, when my mom spent all of ours on her drink. He let me sleep over when Nygel had people in the apartment. He was always there, you know?”

“Yeah,” Clarke nodded. “Wells was like that, for me.” Raven eyed her a little, and Clarke realized how that might sound. “Not—it was never like _that_. We were more like siblings.”

Raven smirked, clearly not believing her. “Whatever you say.”

Clarke looked away, flushing, eyes straying to Bellamy because she’s predictable. But he was irritatingly focused, facing ahead, and all she could see was the back of him.

To be fair, it was a nice view.

“Ah,” Raven said, and Clarke glanced over to see her staring at him too. “You and freckles?”

“ _Freckles_?” Clarke snorted, and Raven shrugged. “Yeah—yes. His name’s Bellamy,” she added. “He’s the co-captain.”

“Who’s the other one?” Raven asked, stooping to squint at a tiny yellow flower. She must’ve decided she liked it, because she plucked it out and stuffed it in her pocket.

“Me,” Clarke said, feeling a little smug when Raven seemed surprised.

“Makes sense,” Raven decided. “Jaha was pretty convinced you were down here, taking over the world.”

“Nah,” Clarke said, feeling fond, because _of course_ Wells thought she was okay. He always had faith, in everyone, even when they didn’t deserve it. “That’s Octavia’s job.”

“Who’s Octavia?” Raven asked, and Clarke had to remind herself she’d only been on the ground with the hundred for three or four days.

It felt like _years_ , but it hadn’t even been a week. There was still a lot to catch them both up on.

“Bellamy’s sister,” Clarke said, and Raven gaped. “They hid her under the floor for fifteen years.”

Raven gave a low whistle. “Damn.” By then, they were at the camp’s gates, and Octavia herself was marching out, looking even fiercer than usual.

O.J. was strapped to her chest again, but that did little to soften the picture. She stood with her hands on her hips, glaring out at them. “You’re late,” she barked, and her gaze narrowed on Wells. “Who’s that?”

“Wells Jaha,” Bellamy said, and she frowned.

“Like the Chancellor?” she asked.

“Exactly like him,” Bellamy muttered, and Clarke remembered with stark suddenness that Bellamy had _shot_ Thelonious. “This is his son.”

“My best friend,” Clarke added, because by now the other delinquents had trickled out, and were all sort of looking at Wells pointedly, suspicious and angry. “He’s come down to help us.”

“His dad didn’t know, if that helps,” Raven said. “He basically told him to fuck off, and left.”

It seems to settle the crowd a little, but they’re still inherently wary, and still give the boys a wide berth.

“Lay him out in the medic tent,” Clarke ordered, and they nodded before dragging him away.

“So you’re like the doctor?” Raven asked, sizing her up, and Clarke shrugged.

“I’m what we’ve got.” She hoped it’d be enough.

Wells sits up when she eventually makes it to the tent—after being stopped by nearly half the kids first, trying to answer the same three questions without getting snappy, first. _Is he really the Chancellor’s kid? How can we trust him? Is the Chancellor coming down, next?_

“You’re pretty popular,” she chirps, keeping her voice light. Wells shrugs one shoulder, playing with his hands.

“I think you mean infamous,” he sighs, and then glances back at her with half a smile. “I thought I’d be the one doing the rescuing,” he teases, but she can tell he’s at least a little disappointed. Wells had always hated feeling useless.

“We’ll take turns,” she decides, making him roll over so she can check the gash on his side. It’s pretty shallow, nothing serious, but she puts some salve from the Dropship’s med kits on it, and bandages it up. “You can be the hero next time.”

Wells snorts a little. “I think we both know I’ll never be the hero from our stories. I’ll be the old wizard or something, the one that teaches the hero mediation.”

“I never liked those stories.” Clarke reaches over to spread the rest of the paste across the cut on his forehead.

He’s still grinning at her when Bellamy walks in, takes one look at them, and then glances at the ground, looking for all the world like he’s _embarrassed_. “Sorry for interrupting,” he grumbles, and Clarke can’t help huffing a little, because—

Of all people, he really should know better, shouldn’t he? He actually _has_ a sibling, so he knows what that feels like. He knows that kind of love exists.

“Don’t be,” Clarke says, and she means it. “What do you need?”

“Monty took Murphy out to collect those plant samples you wanted, to determine allergies.” His eyes flit over to Wells again, like he can’t really help it, and then he glares back at the floor. “Just wanted to let you know.”

“Okay,” Clarke nods, but he’s already gone. She frowns at where he’d just stood, sighing.

“Your boyfriend doesn’t seem too fond of me,” Wells muses, and Clarke shoves him in his uninjured arm, so he laughs.

And that’s when _Raven_ storms in, because they have the _worst_ timing.

Raven raises a single brow. “Bad time?” And if Clarke didn’t know any better, she’d think she looked a little disappointed.

Just a little, and only for a second, before the smirk swallowed her face.

“I was just leaving, actually,” Clarke says, shaking Wells’s hand off when he snatches at her arm in a panic. She has to find Bellamy and knock some sense into him, anyway, so she just gives Wells a discrete wink before walking out.

But she doesn’t get a chance to hit Bellamy with one of the books he _borrowed_ from the Ton DC Library, because some of the kids near the front entrance are shouting, and when she looks over, she sees Lincoln, Echo and a group of other grounders, similarly dressed in animal skins and furs, marching towards the camp.

There’s no way all of them can be librarians—Lincoln had said they were rare. Clarke thinks of the spear, the prick of the needle in the bunker, and rushes over to where Bellamy, Miller and O are all standing.

“What’s going on?” she asks, and Bellamy frowns a little. He’s still not meeting her eyes, which is infuriating, but she’ll have to deal with that later.

“They saw the shuttle come down,” he explains. “I think they’re worried we’re going to attack them.”

“So we assure them we won’t,” Clarke shrugs, tone purposefully light. Secretly, she’s worried it won’t be so easy, but she has to at least seem positive for the kids. Bellamy gives her a look, like he knows what she’s really thinking. She pointedly ignores him, going to stand in front of the first grounder, a hard-looking woman with long hair spilling over her shoulders, and charcoal swirled around her eyes.

“Are you the leader of the sky-people?” she asks, with the same lilting accent that Clarke’s decided is probably just the way grounders speak.

“I’m Clarke.” She gestures over to Bellamy, who steps up beside her. “This is Bellamy. We’re the leaders.”

The woman seems a little amused, but nods anyway. “I am Anya. We saw you were attacked last night.”

Clarke nearly collapses with relief—they thought _they_ were under attack, and came to help them. “No, those were friends of ours, coming down to help us. One of them was wounded in the fall, but they’re both alright.”

Anya’s eyes drift over Clarke’s head, and she turns to see Wells limping up to the group, with Raven under one arm to help steady him. Finn eyes them a little, but Raven seems to be avoiding his gaze, which Clarke notes and puts away for later.

“This is twice now your people have caught the mountain’s attention,” Anya says, and Clarke looks back at her, confused. “It would be best if you built your homes under the surface, like us. It is easier to hide and defend, that way.”

“What are you talking about?” Bellamy asks roughly, and Anya’s face goes sharp. Clarke reaches out to grip his elbow, soothing.

“You know nothing of life on the ground,” she sighs, sounding more like a put-upon nanny than anything else. “Lincoln has offered to stay, to teach you. If you intend to stay above ground, your wall must be higher.”

She turns and leaves without a second glance, along with everyone in her group except Lincoln, who stands off to the side a little awkwardly, like now that he’s here he’s not sure what to do.

Clarke and Bellamy start over towards him, but Octavia scurries in front, O.J. dangling on her chest and kicking his legs in protest. “I’ve got this,” she assures them, and Bellamy scowls.

“Like hell you do.”

But O just shoots him a glare and half-runs over to the librarian, to reach him first.

“What was she talking about, with the mountain?” Bellamy demands, and Lincoln fidgets a little before speaking. He has charcoal around his eyes and down both cheeks, like Anya, and looks very different from the quiet, grumpy librarian he was before.

“We are not the only people who live here,” Lincoln shrugs, and Clarke does her best not to seem surprised, but clearly he can tell. “This planet is very large. There are probably clans we have never even heard about, across the sea, or on the other side of the mountain.”

“And the mountain clan,” Clarke presses. “You don’t like them?”

Lincoln’s face goes impressively blank. “They are evil,” he says, voice even. Like he’s just stating a known fact. “They hide in their castle, and take anyone who strays too close. Nobody ever returns from the mountain.”

“That’s why you live underground,” O guesses, and she looks angrier than Clarke has ever seen her. “You’re hiding from them?”

“They do not go very far into the forest,” Lincoln shrugs. “And we are not warriors. My people do not believe in wars, or fighting—we have heard the stories. The war that killed the earth. We cannot take the chance it might happen again. We barely survived, the last time.”

“You shot us in the bunker,” Bellamy points out, and Lincoln rolls his eyes a little.

“We had to determine if you were enemies or allies.”

“And have you decided?” Clarke wonders. Lincoln gives a thin smile.

“If you were enemies, I would not be here.” He reaches a hand into the leather pouch at his hip, pulling out four parcels wrapped in deerskin. The first, he hands to Bellamy, the next to Clarke, and the last to Octavia. “Gifts,” he explains. “It is our custom, when forming new friends.”

Clarke unwraps hers, small enough to fit in her hand, and finds a chain, heavy and silver. There’s a clasp at the end, and Lincoln points at the watch on her wrist, where the leather has begun to flake apart.

“For your timepiece,” he says, and she chokes up a little.

Bellamy’s gift is a compass, simple brass that’s worn a little around the edges, but the needle still points north when he turns. Octavia’s is a dagger, small and narrow and clearly ornamental, with silver vines twisting around the handle. But the blade looks sharp enough to do its job.

“What was mine is now yours,” Lincoln says, and it sounds like a prayer. “What was yours is now ours.”

Octavia reached over and poked Bellamy’s arm with her dagger, until a little pinprick of blood swelled out and he flinched. “Well, mine works!” she chirps happily, while Bellamy glares.

“Thank you,” Clarke tells Lincoln, putting the chain around her neck and stuffing it down her shirt so it won’t get in the way. She’ll hook her father’s watch on it later, when she has the time. “I should go check on Wells and Raven.”

“Yeah,” Bellamy says, and he’s frowning again, but Clarke doesn’t have the patience to deal with it right now.

“He’s my _best friend_ ,” she snaps, and his eyes darken.

“You really think that’ll last after he finds out about _this_?” he hisses, gesturing broadly between them, and Clarke frowns, confused.

“What are you talking about?”

He gives her an unimpressed look, and from the corner of her eye, Clarke can see Octavia and Lincoln have drifted off to the side, pretending not to listen. Lincoln’s tugging gently on one of O.J.’s hooves.

“I shot his dad, Clarke.”

Clarke stares for a moment, eyes going wide, because—she’d forgotten. She’d forgotten that the Chancellor was dead, and that Bellamy had killed him. She’d forgotten Wells was an orphan, now.

Except— “Wait,” she says, holding a hand up like it might actually stop him. “What did Raven say, when we got back?”

Bellamy looks down at her, shaking his head. He doesn’t remember.

“She said he told his dad to fuck off,” Clarke says, breath catching. “Bellamy—Jaha must be alive.”

“Bullshit.” But he doesn’t look so certain, anymore.

Raven isn’t in the med tent when they get there, but Wells is sitting on the cot, messing with one of the discarded metal bracelets. He greets them with a wave. “Jasper recruited Raven’s help with these,” he holds up the bracelet.

“Is your father dead?” Clarke demands, and Wells startles a little.

“Not since I saw him last,” he shrugs. “Which was roughly a day ago, give or take.”

Behind her, Bellamy sags against the pole in relief, and Wells watches, amused.

“You’re not a very good assassin, as it happens.”

“Sorry,” Bellamy says, and he does sound at least a little sorry. Maybe not for shooting Thelonious, but for Wells.

“It’s fine.” He laughs when they stare at him, incredulous. Clarke knows Wells isn’t the grudge-holding type, but—she was expecting at least a _little_ wariness. “Seriously. I’ve had a while to get used to the idea. Your face was all over the Ark, after the shooting. And Jasper told me about your sister, so I’m assuming you did it to come down with her.”

Bellamy frowns, clearly a little thrown. “Yeah, but—”

“I would have done the same thing, if I were in your shoes,” Wells says. “Well—maybe I would have tried talking, first. But I would have done what it took to come down. I sort of did, actually.”

Bellamy swallows thickly, glancing over at Clarke. “I should probably make sure Raven hasn’t throttled Jasper yet,” he hedges, backing towards the exit.

“It is a hard impulse to ignore,” she agrees, and watches him leave.

“So,” Wells teases, and he’s grinning widely when she looks over. “You and my dad’s would-be-killer?”

She throws one of the bandage rolls at his smug face. “Shut up.”

“Just five days, and I’ve already been replaced,” he crows, and she hits him with his own pillow, before sobering and sitting down. He moves over to make more room, but the cot is narrow anyway, and it’s a little uncomfortable for both of them.

“No one could replace you Wells,” she says, and he wraps an arm around her, one of those half-hugs he used to give when they were kids.

“I know,” he says, fond. “Clarke, I—I have a message from your mom.”

Clarke snaps her head up, suddenly starving for information. She hadn’t realized just _how_ sure she’d been, that her mother was dead. “She’s alive? They didn’t float her? How is she? What’s the message?”

Wells is looking at her with so much pity her teeth ache. “She said she’s sorry. And she loves you. And she’s proud of you.”

Clarke can feel the tears begin to burn behind her eyes. “What does that _mean_ , she’s sorry? That doesn’t make any sense, she didn’t—”

“Clarke,” Wells takes her hand, squeezing. “There’s something else you should know.”

Bellamy finds her that night, just after the sun has set, at the edge of one of the smaller fires across camp. He’s not the first, but she’s chased everyone else off by now, and he’s just gotten back with that night’s dinner, which he shoves into her lap.

“Wells told you,” she says, because she knows. If he hadn’t, Bellamy would be demanding to know why she’s all alone, doesn’t she know it’s dangerous, there could be mountain people or wild boars lurking about. But instead he just sits beside her in silence, and so she knows.

“Yeah,” he sighs, reaching over to fold her hair behind her ear, where its fallen from her usual twist. “I’m sorry, Clarke.”

“Me too.” She hasn’t cried yet, and she’s not sure what that says about her.

Eventually she eats what Bellamy’s brought her—wild tomatoes and blackberries almost past their time, and some meat off a two-headed stag he describes. Once she’s done licking the grease from her fingers, he takes her by the hand and leads her to their tent without a word.

He bends down to unlace her boots, and she swats him away. She’s not an _invalid_.

“She probably thought she was doing the right thing,” he says, careful, like he’s afraid the wrong word might set her off.

“I know,” Clarke sighs, and he looks up sharply. “That’s the worst part—I know that, and I still can’t forgive her. I’m not _like_ Wells, or you. I’m not the hero, I don’t save people—”

“Hey,” Bellamy reaches for her hand, and brings her wrist to his mouth, lips pressed against her pulse point. “You’re a fucking hero,” he says, rough. “You saved lots of people.” He swallows, and the feel of it sends a shiver through her arm. “You saved me.”

He drags her to bed, just a bunch of blankets heaped on one of the cheaper cots, and she curls up with her head pressed under his chin, so she can feel him breathing.

She’s on the edge of sleep, exhausted from the day, when he speaks again. “Wells is nice.” But it sounds like a question, so she rolls over to face him. He’s staring at her hair, playing with it gently, and she takes his hand, and brings his knuckles to her mouth.

“He’s my best friend,” she says, and then realizes it might not be totally true anymore. “He’s like my brother.”

Bellamy’s eyes darken a little. “He came down here for you,” he argues. “Like Raven came for Finn.”

“He came down for me like you came down for Octavia,” Clarke corrects, kissing him until she feels him relax underneath her. His hand drifts down to palm her thighs, and she whimpers into his mouth.

She kisses him and kisses him. She won’t stop until he believes her.

 

Wells is trying to change the dressing on his side, when Raven storms in, the way she does everywhere. She’s like a hurricane, meant to be weathered.

He hasn’t seen Clarke since he gave her the news, and he hasn’t sought her out, either. He knows she’ll need time, to come to grips with what Abby did. He knows she might not ever forgive her.

The rest of the kids have been more than helpful; Jasper brought him dinner, and chattered on about the grounders, and what they’ve found on the earth. Octavia introduced him to Lincoln, glaring at the kids who seemed nervous around him, shouting that if Clarke vouched for him, that was good enough for her. She showed him the piglets, and one nibbled at his fingers for a while, because he wasn’t ready to move.

But for the most part, the kids all fit together, each having a place among themselves, and Wells isn’t really sure where he fits in all of that. He can’t just trail along after Clarke all day. That’s never been who he was. Even Raven gets along with everyone, like she’d been with them the whole time. He saw her with her boyfriend earlier—Finn, who introduced himself and seemed nice enough. Nice enough to make Wells feel even more awful.

So when he felt himself bleeding through the bandage, Wells didn’t bother asking anyone for help. He was already in the medical tent, and he’d watched Clarke put it on. How hard could it be?

Except the gash goes down his side and curves around his back, so there’s no way he can twist his arm enough to reach all of it. He’s still flailing around a little, when Raven shows up.

“We had a fight,” she announces, and then seems to realize the ambiguity of that phrase. “Me and Finn.” She watches skeptically as Wells tries to spread the salve like he’d seen Clarke do, and then marches over and slaps his hand away. “Here, let me.”

“Since when do you know about medicine?” Wells asks, tired. He knows he should be supportive, maybe even touched that Raven came to him with her news. She’s his friend, even if he’s not quite hers, yet, and no matter what, he’ll respect her decisions.

But _God_ , it’s fucking hard to hear about Finn. The whole camp was made up of teenagers, and teenagers like to gossip, so he’s heard the stories. Finn and Harper, Finn and Roma, Finn and basically anything that moved. And Finn seemed nice, but. When Wells looks at Raven, it’s like he’s looking at the sun, and he’s not sure how anyone could replace that.

Raven shrugs, oblivious. “I know how to fix engines; it can’t be _that_ different.” Her hands are rougher, the pressure harder, than Clarke’s, and Wells winces a little. She must notice because suddenly her touch is so soft he barely even feels it.

She slaps the new bandage on a little sloppily, and then redoes the one on his face. “There,” she says, proudly. “All done.”

“You’ve got the doctor’s touch,” Wells teases, but when he turns around, she’s so close her breaths land on his chin, and he feels his heart stop.

And he knows it’s selfish, knows there are so many other, better things to wish for—like safety for the camp, and the people on the Ark, and enough food to go around, and actual _bathrooms_ , but. All he can really think is how much he would give, if he could just kiss her.

And then she kisses him, instead.

He reaches a hand up to her neck, thumb tracing her jaw, and for one mind-numbing second, everything is perfect. But then it’s not. It’s too rough, and too rushed, and it’s nothing like what he wanted, nothing how it should be. Raven bites his lip so hard he flinches, and snakes a hand down to palm his crotch, and Wells pulls away.

Her mouth chases him a little bit, before she realizes, and when she opens her eyes, it’s in a glare.

“What the fuck,” she hisses, and Wells’s stomach sinks. She doesn’t want _him_ —she wants to make Finn jealous, or maybe try to make herself forget him for the night. And she thought Wells was her best option, because Wells is too nice to say no, and he likes her, and she knew about it.

“You’re upset about Finn,” Wells says, taking his hand back.

“No I’m not,” she snaps, and when he just looks at her, she sinks on herself. “Fine, I am. You know he was only down here for one day before he started fucking every girl in camp? Roma told me. She said I deserved to know, and the others were too embarrassed. _One day_. He said he thought he’d never see me again, but.” She worries her lip a little, and Wells has to clench his fists not to reach out and hold her. It would be nothing but comfort, but, all things considered, it might be the wrong approach. “One _fucking_ day.”

“He’s a dick,” Wells says, and she gives a sharp laugh. She’s reaching a hand towards her knee, and he catches it around her wrist.

“I figured, you helped me get here,” Raven explains, pragmatic as usual. “So it’s the least I could do.”

Wells does his best to keep his voice even, unstrained. “It’s really not,” he sighs.

Raven snatches her arm back, looked chastened, staring hard at the cot. “I thought you wanted this.”

Wells isn’t sure he’s ever hated anything as much as he hates the people who have trained Raven Reyes to think that love means doing whatever it is they want her to.

“I don’t want you to pay me back for helping you,” he says, choosing his words carefully, worried she might get spooked. “I don’t—I don’t want just one night, some obligatory hand job. I want _you_ , and I don’t want anything you don’t want to give. I want you to be happy, and. I’d _like_ it, if you were happy with me.”

There’s a very long moment, where Raven studies him intently, and Wells tries not to fidget, or play with his hands. Finally, she says, “This isn’t about Finn,” and leans forward.

The second time Raven kisses him, it’s not exactly how he’d pictured. It’s a little messier; she clearly knows what she’s doing, but he doesn’t, and it shows. Still, she just hums a little, amused, and moves her mouth until his becomes its mirror. She climbs onto his lap, and he ignores the twinge of pain when her leg brushes his wound, but he must still jump a little, because she pulls back, concerned.

“Fuck, I forgot you’re injured,” she says, and glares down at the injury in question.

Wells’s fingers twitch, where they’re splayed across her sides, and he grins. “You know you _just_ changed my bandage, right?”

Raven rolls her eyes, climbing off him, only to tug him down beside her on the cot. “I’m staying,” she says, and his thoughts scramble a little until she huffs, “Not _for_ anything, jesus, you can’t even _make out_ right now.” She moves in a little closer, grabbing his arm and pulling it around her waist. “I just want to stay with you.”

“You can stay as long as you’d like,” he says, and she smirks. “And I _can_ make out. A little.”

Raven laughs against his mouth, and she tastes like the sun, too.

 

Clarke wakes to Jasper and Miller barging into the tent, looking panicked.

“Monty and Murphy are still missing,” Miller says, and Clarke and Bellamy scramble to get dressed, and follow them into the camp.

Octavia and Lincoln, Raven and Wells, and Finn are already waiting.

“Where were they last seen?” Clarke demands.

“They went off, to get some samples. They haven’t been back since.”

Bellamy turns to Lincoln, looking grave. “Could it be the mountain people?”

“It sounds like them,” Lincoln agrees. “But your people are also new to the area, and might have gotten lost. Either way, you should send a search out.”

“I’ll go,” Clarke decides, and Bellamy whirls on her.

“Like hell—”

“It was my idea, Bell,” she says, firm, and he looks down at her, pained. “I won’t go alone,” she promises, “But you have to stay, and watch over the camp.”

“I’ll go with you,” Wells offers, and Clarke turns to say no, but Raven beats her to it.

“You’re still hurt, don’t be an idiot,” she snaps, and Clarke bites back a smile.

“I’ll go,” Finn chirps, and Bellamy looks ready to argue.

Lincoln steps forward, laying a hand on Clarke’s shoulder. “And I will. I know these woods better, anyhow.” Clarke hesitates for a moment, but she only has to see Miller and Jasper, still panicked, to agree.

Bellamy closes his eye with a deep breath, and then tugs her away to the side.

“You’re not changing my mind,” she tells him.

“I’m not trying to,” he says, and kisses her, rougher than before. He tangles a hand through her hair, clenching so hard her eyes water, holding her close. “Just come back,” he says, pulling away.

“I will,” she promises. “We’re fate, remember?”

He looks ready to chain her to one of the ten poles, and refuse to let her leave, so Clarke pulls the silver chain from her shirt. She’d hooked her watch’s clock face to the clasp the night before, so it hangs down in the middle. She slips it over Bellamy’s head, and he leans down to make it easier.

“My dad always said everything in life is fickle, but time,” she explains. “He said you can count on minutes and hours. So if I’m not back in one day, you’ll know there’s trouble.”

Bellamy tucks the clock in his shirt, like she had, and then digs the compass from his pocket. “Follow its lead,” he says, gruff. “And _come back_. I don’t want to have to storm a whole mountain.”

Clarke huffs a laugh, and he kisses her three more times before letting go, like he can’t help himself.

“They could just be lost,” she reminds him. She doesn’t believe herself for a second.

“Yeah,” he says, but he doesn’t either.

They pack three bags before they leave, with enough rations to last them two days. Lincoln leads them through the trees, swiveling his head around every few moments, like he’s expecting an attack from all sides.

Clarke wonders how often he actually goes to the surface, and what it means, that he came here for them.

“Raven and I broke up,” Finn says conversationally, and Clarke eyes him a little. She’s pretty sure he’s not about to turn searching for their possibly-dead friends into a come on, but. She’s not _positive_ he won’t.

“Because you cheated on her,” she finishes, and he makes a face.

“Raven and I—we grew up together.”

“I know. She told me.” Clarke watches as Lincoln gets farther and farther ahead, either to give them more privacy, or to drown them out, she’s not sure. She quickens her pace to catch up.

“I still love her, you know? And I loved her when we were kids, I did, but—she just. She didn’t have anyone else, so she made me her everything. I probably would’ve ended up marrying her. Getting some maintenance job. Having a kid.”

“Sounds like a tough life,” Clarke deadpans, and he sighs.

“It’s not—it wasn’t that. I just. It was a lot of pressure, you know? To be all that she had. And I wasn’t even sure it was what I wanted. Actually, I am—it wasn’t. I never wanted that life. I wanted something bigger.” He stops, brushing at a patch of moss, beaten down by a boot print.  “Sometimes I think getting arrested was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“You should have told her,” Clarke says. She’s lost sight of Lincoln, and is debating just calling his name. “You didn’t have to lead her on, and then cheat on her. She said you saved her.”

Finn grins a little sadly. “I always did want to be the knight in shining armor,” he says.

Clarke’s about to respond, when the metal can lands at their feet. By the time the smoke starts filling the air, it’s already too late. She’s lightheaded, and barely sees when Finn hits the ground.

Clarke wakes to the old spirit, perched at her feet. She’s in a room she doesn’t recognize, blindingly white, except for an old-world painting she recognizes from books on the Ark.

She’s dressed all in white, too, which makes her stomach clench. Someone _undressed_ her, and changed her clothes. She checks for the compass, but that’s gone too.

 _Looking for this?_ the spirit asks, holding out the compass in its old, withered hands. Clarke snatches it away quickly, in case it turns out to be a vision, and disappears.

But the metal is cool and solid in her hands, and Clarke brings it to her chest, swallowing a sob. “What are you doing here?” she asks. “Where am I?”

 _You’re in the mountain_ , the spirit says simply. The old spirit had never played with words, or riddles. Clarke had always liked this one best.

Then it clicks its tongue, and swivels its hand around. _What a mess you’ve made of your hair_ , it chides. _Come, let me fix it._

Clarke turns obligingly, and the spirit combs its bony fingers through her hair, twisting bits back like a crown. They would do this when she was small, and so when they left the first time, Clarke kept on doing it. It felt like a routine, something to focus on, and clear her mind at the same time.

 _There_ , the spirit says when it’s finished. _Just like a princess, again_.

“Where are the others?” Clarke asks, turning back. “Are they okay? What about Finn and Lincoln? Monty?”

The spirit smiles sadly, and it’s already starting to fade out like a light. It flickers a bit first, and Clarke has never been sure if it’s something to do with their energy, or if they just like the dramatics of it all.

 _Break the glass_ , it says, barely a whisper. _Time saves, but the compass leads_.  _You will see another sunrise._

And then it’s gone, and Clarke is alone again.

But she still has the compass, clenched in her hand.

She glances around, taking in her surroundings. Four white walls, the painting, the bed, and a single white door made out of metal. There’s a small square window inset at the top, made of thick-looking glass.

Clarke grips the compass like a weapon. She can’t wait twenty-four hours, for Bellamy to give in and come after them.

She has fate on her side, after all. She’ll storm the mountain, herself. 


End file.
